Project ZU Research Week (Week 3: Alcremie & Ivysaur)

[Albi]

Ladder Record

Not that many games, but good winrate overall. How much of this winrate was Silvally's merit? Well, not much, but it was fun to play around with it.

Set I Used

Silvally @ Life Orb
Ability: RKS System
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
- Explosion
- Multi-Attack
- Shadow Ball
- Flamethrower

I figured Silvally doesn't really have many opportunities to set up in front of other mons, especially fearing status from slower passive mons, so i just made the 4th move explosion to have a fun way to nuke everything in existence.
The problem with using this is, as stated before, you're giving up on Ground-vally that provides much more utility also on the defensive side, thanks to rocks resistance and volt switch immunity giving it more opportunities to come in safely and pivot around with u-turn. I mean, giving U-turn to a life orb mon is not the end of the world, but honestly this set doesnt get on the field enough to justify pivoting around with it, while losing health to hazards + life orb recoil. Moreover, it doesn't really have the speed tier to be a consistent late game sweeper like, say, Minccino.
However, I think it's very effective against bulkier stally builds, where the mixed set can really shine, allowing it to hit sturdy physical walls like Tangela and Mawile really hard with Flamethrower.
The team I used reflects this inconsistency, being good against bulky stuff but struggling against fast offensive teams. Thankfully Alcremie carried me more than half of the games I played, thanks to ladder not really appreciating Centiskorch. The general idea of the team is having a solid defensive backbone, spreading status around to chip everything and let Silvally or Alcremie clean up, with Rotom being a very effective pivot.
Funnily enough I struggle to break the other spotlight mon Cradily, unless I manage to toxic it.
Team:

Replays

Silv sweeping a bulky offense in the end game
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8zu-1322259425-l665klzi8h44474ter4dkrmkwo2t3cppw

Silv doing work vs semi-stall
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8zu-1322617893-hisnv3func5fpl6mzcx69jn3xebi5mzpw

Win vs an offensive team, with Silv being clutch vs opposing Alcremie (although the plans to deal with Ludi and Rhydon weren't exactly ideal)
I still had Self-Destruct here for some reason, Explosion would have killed Magneton from full.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8zu-1320642481-qajipyccyeo04g0sqfjxm1zgveuwx89pw

 

[yovan33321]

So i wanted to build around cradily because silvally is bad atm.
I tryed an offensive and a defensive set of cradily.

Defensive cradily :

Cradily @ Leftovers
Ability: Storm Drain
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Stealth Rock
- Recover
- Toxic
- Giga Drain

Cradily is in my opinion the best sr user of actual zu. he learn toxic, can recover and has some great stabs like gigadrain or rock blast.
He gets a good immunity to water type with storm drain, but his other habilitystay usable to prevent trick rotom and others.
with some good defensive stats you can invest him like you want, this mon fit in every teams.
replay where cradily use sr toxic and recover : https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8zu-1323523651

Offensive cradily :

Cradily @ Leftovers
Ability: Storm Drain
EVs: 252 HP / 56 Atk / 200 Def
Impish Nature
- Power Whip
- Swords Dance
- Recover
- Rock Blast

What is the difference between cradily and mawile-mega? mawile can't recover.
I searched to use cradily offensively then i saw he has 80atk bs and sword dance. sadly he just has Power whip, earthquake and rock blast/stone edge/rock tomb. I prefered use power whip and rock blast because cradily without speed is too slow to be 2hko by gyro ball ferroseed. Power whip+eq does not hit golbat. Sd cradily sd is a cool lure tho.
Even offensive cradily stay a good switch in to some threats of the tier, and he can easily use sd to pressure the opponent : https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8zu-1323527451


Team i have built this week :
https://pokepast.es/676bd5819c6d5d77
https://pokepast.es/c420dad13a3b15d5

63

zurw1 yovanent

1452

74.0%

 

[Serving Suggestion]

Not sure if I did it right as I forgot to pre-register but I have been playing around with Cradily.

Experimented with a few different sets, namely a generic defensive toxic/SR one (v. boring and passive), SDily (mostly underwhelming), and finally my favourite of the lot, even if it's not super viable:

Cradily @ Leftovers
Ability: Storm Drain
EVs: 160 HP / 36 Def / 252 SpD / 60 Spe
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Meteor Beam
- Giga Drain
- Substitute
- Recover

Basically I was having a lot of issues with stall/semi-stall while using SD cradily - it would just get toxiced and then whittled down super easily. The idea of this set is to set up a sub on something that can't hurt you much and then gradually boost with Meteor Beam; you're not gonna be sweeping much but can take chunks out of the opposing team as even a +1 Meteor Beam can be a pain to switch into.

I gradually came to appreciate Cradily more over time and overall think it's a decent if not groundbreaking mon. Grass/rock is solid coverage vs everything except the (now) rare steels; Cradily is bound to get slightly more viable with the departure of magneton. I do however agree with Corthius in that its typing is super weird and leaves it unable to beat stuff like Centi and Cuno that it would like to.

Record

Proof

Replays

Unfortunately they all seemed to default to private even if I clicked save but Cradily did put in decent work against fat teams/balance:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8zu-1323536903

Team

https://pokepast.es/4a9908a9564949f8

 

[Tuthur]

Week 2:


Cofagrigus has been mostly used for its Iron Defense set. However, Cofagrigus has an extremely wide movepool with options such as Will-O-Wisp, Toxic Spikes, Haze, Pain Split, and Knock Off for more utility based sets, but also Trick Room, Calm Mind, and Nasty Plot that enables different sweeper sets.

You can use any Cofagrigus set as long as it doesn't have Iron Defense.


Since its return, Pincurchin and Electric Terrain haven't been making waves. Magneton leaving also means the best Rising Voltage user is gone, but it also means the likes of Stunfisk formes and Ferroseed are less popular, making Electric spam less risky. Pincurchin can be used ranging from support sets for the likes of Lilligant and Swoobat to stand alone breaker with Choice Specs.

You can use any Pincurchin set.

In order to participate you must follow instructions at bottom of OP.
Use the prefix ZURW2 on your ladder alts this week.

Edit: Thanks for everyone who submitted and Serving Suggestion for winning. Overall mixed Silvally seemed to work pretty well even if the opportunity cost over other formes and lack of defensive utility harmed it. Cradily didn't shine a lot but still earned a spot on the Viabiliy Ranking for its small niche.

 

[BT89]

ZURW2 imposter
pincurchin

 

[5Dots]

ZURW2Coffin
Cofagrigus

 

[viet noa]

i’m pretty late but i thought i might as well post my findings.

i was a bit busy this week, so i only got like 20 games with mixedvally in. during those games, i used possibly the worst silvally set of all time just for the laughs

Nuke Valley

Silvally @ Salac Berry
Ability: RKS System
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Work Up
- Explosion
- Draco Meteor
- Steel Beam

i also tried a bit of the standard mixedvally set (mentioned in the first post of this thread), but i’m bad at using it. as you can see in the image, i’m pretty bad at pokémon, and most of my wins came from being carried by this core of 5. also, this is the only time nuke valley worked, and it’s vs a pretty odd team.

CONCLUSION: please, please don’t used nuke valley. also, regular mixed valley is OK but you kinda need to be good at the game in order to take advantage. and i suck, so yea

 

[Corthius]

edit: zurw2 the f (name was to long) & using pinch and maybe cofa

 

[viet noa]

zurw2 hiss
cofagrigus and/or pincurchin

 

[JonAmon 25]

ZURW2 Jon
I’ll use Cofa

 

[Hats]

ZURW2 Wendy
pincurchin

 

[Orneus]

Orni ZURW2

Cofagrigus

 

[Serving Suggestion]

ZURW2 Sstatic

Pinc

 

[Serving Suggestion]

Pincurchin.

My hope was that with Magneton gone everyone would think electric types didn't exist any more so I could use electric spam to great success. I decided to capitalise on the free electric terrain from this urchin to pack some big special (Raichu) and physical (Silv-Elec) power. Sadly I forgot that Rotom is still very present and therefore Silv-Ground is in pretty much every team. Luckily it and most other grounds aren't too difficult to whittle down over time.

Anyway here's the fairly generic set:

Pincurchin @ Terrain Extender
Ability: Electric Surge
EVs: 192 HP / 64 SpA / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Rising Voltage
- Surf
- Spikes
- Recover

I would say Pinc was good but didn't exactly set the world alight itself - its role is more of a support mon in the team I used. That being said, a rising voltage in elec terrain still hurts anything that doesn't resist (the SpA EVs are to OHKO the stupid skill link squirrel) and having an actual threatening spiker with recovery is nice. It's also useful to have a way to block Cofag and the like using rest, and other stuff using sleep powder/hypnosis.

On the negative side, this thing definitely has 4MSS - being able to run both sets of spikes would be nice and sucker punch would be cool. And for god's sake, please give it volt switch.

Record

Too many games

Replays

Always forget to save, but looks like one did - pinc didn't do too much special in this game but was always able to nip and and pop some spikes down and force out the defogger:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8zu-1327909414

Team

https://pokepast.es/af8512ba1fc34406

P.S. Make Lurantis S rank

 

[viet noa]

Cofagrigus


i was hoping that i’d get more games in with cofagrigus this week, but i’ve progressively been getting more frustrated & having less fun with pokémon in general (mainly because i’m trash lmao). so sadly, i didn’t get many games in at all this week.

record

Cofagrigus @ Colbur Berry
Ability: Mummy
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Bold Nature
- Body Press / Will-O-Wisp
- Shadow Ball / Hex
- Toxic Spikes
- Rest

i mainly experimented with cofagrigus as a physical wall that could help set up toxic spikes. having a physical wall like cofagrigus pairs really well with frail sweepers like frosmoth, but there were not many times where i’d actually be effectively able to get off toxic spikes. this is mainly due to special breakers wearing it down, and defog users like altaria having greater longevity. i had to run rest over pain split in order to not get crippled by status, but it’s not ideal.

admittedly, whenever i did successfully keep toxic spikes on the field, it provided a great help for my offensive threats. it’s probably better to use garbodor or qwilfish as a toxic spikes setter, though, as cofagrigus can’t do a lot to threaten opposing defog users without a boost of some sort.

still though, off the basis of cofagrigus being a complete wall in zu, and getting carried by frosmoth, i was able to win more than i lost. so overall, while i think iron defense cofagrigus is still much superior, at least i learned about how well cofagrigus pairs with frosmoth.

some replays

i played bad, but cofa’s tspikes helped frosmoth sweep

tspikes forces altaria switch, frosmoth takes care of business

cofa walls an ... interesting team

cofa walls hitmonchan which helps out a bit

played bad but cofa tspikes were cool

unfortunately though, i’m probably gonna take a break from pokémon showdown for the time being. i’ve been getting more and more frustrated at the game, as i feel like i’m not really improving & i'm not really good to begin with. and a lot of my wins come against teams that are frankly poorly-built, so it’s hard for me to feel like i “deserved” to win whenever i do. so, i’m likely going to take a bit of a break.

 

[Tuthur]

Week 3:

Double Dance

Alcremie-Lemon-Cream (F) @ Chesto Berry / Leftovers
Ability: Aroma Veil
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Calm Mind
- Acid Armor
- Rest
- Stored Power

Alcremie is best known for its offensive and defensive Calm Mind sets featuring Dazzling Gleam. However, it is also able to run a set using Stored Power that lets it break more easily through stall teams despite being unable to answer Dark-types.

You can use any Alcremie set as long as it keeps the same 4 moves as the sample set.


Some people brought up sun on the forum and on discord. The playstyle was quite underdevelopped, but players found out Ivysaur to be a very threatening sun sweeeper.

You can use any Ivysaur set as long as it makes use of Chlorophyll.

In order to participate you must follow instructions at bottom of OP.
Use the prefix ZURW3 on your ladder alts this week.

Also, thank to Serving Suggestion for winning last week and everyone else who took part to the project!

 

[5Dots]

ZUWR3Dots


I think Ivysaur has the potential to show its growth in ZU, weather people like it or not.

 

[5Dots]

Is there still going to be a research week? I’d like to see more pokes being nommed.