Project RarelyUsed Teambuilding Competition: week 11: Swampert (submissions open until May 24th)

[Sneakyplanner]

Week 10: Fezandipiti

This week's spotlight is on the toxic chainer; Pecharunt's perfect little soldier. Unlike its ugly siblings, Fezandipiti doesn't provide any raw offensive power. You aren't hitting things with 128 attack close combats or outspeeding mienshao, but what it does bring is a whole lot of utility. A nice defensive typing, passive status spreading and some nice utility moves like taunt, u-turn, thief and every setup move you could want. Thee days it feels like a utility pivot is the best set for fez, but maybe you can be the one to bring back calm mind, or push new boundaries with swords dance.

Teambuilding criteria:
Your team submission must be legal in SV RU and have a fezandipiti on it.

Submission deadline: Teams should be submitted by 11:59 PM (GMT-4) on Friday, May 17th, voting will then go until 11:59 PM (GMT-4) on Sunday May 19th.

 

[fluff!!]

"teambuilder adventures"

(click the sprites for paste!)

I know this team looks like a 1100 player's dream but hold on, listen to me...


I intended on building a balance around this very classic core we have seen in RUPL a few times. Nothing out of the ordinary, it's your classic pivot + slow wallbreaker core you know so well ever since U-turn is a thing. Fezan can also act as a potential win condition, sometimes it just happens.


Cyclizar is also a very common Crawdaunt partner. You know what it does.

So far, everything is looking good, right? Classic 2-mon core with a splashable support that works well with the core, good ol' solid, bread and butter teambuilding. However, things took a turn...


Hailing from PU, Bronzong acts as our dedicated Revavroom counter because I hate Revavroom. Fortunately, this is not the only thing Bronzong does. It acts as our Stealth Rock setter and Ground immunity. Iron Defense lets it counter Iron Leaves and random ladder setup sweepers like Gyarados or Electivire idk. Night Shade brings consistent damage against pmuch everything else and Steel STAB is not needed for Mimikyu thanks to our next Pokemon...


At this moment, FlamingoPokeman 's soul and mine resonated as one, and I channeled the power of Stall and the PU unmon Bellibolt. It acts as another blanket physical check to, like, a lof of things. But mainly Gapdos. Static sometimes proc but don't count on it too much, Poison is better anyway so spam Toxic. Volt Switch is another way of pivoting into Crawdaunt.


what is this. is this stall feat. crawdaunt? Alright, so, Umbreon acts as our Water and Ghost switch-in. Everything from Volcanion to Blastoise, Gengar and H-Zoroark (you'll use Cyclizar for that one) are blanketed by it, and you can even beat pmuch every variant of Blastoise with Toxic + the power of Stall. If you Tera it, you also get a nice Water resistance for the Rain matchup which is shaky at best but you can't have everything in life. Wish allows us to heal Bronzong, which is actually quite nice.




I have no idea. But it actually works. Don't question it.

 

[Heatranator]

SD Fezandipiti Team


I wated to make a more conventional team, but it fell through so I decided to use a more unique team. This team is a Bulky Offense team that uses fezandipiti as a bulky SD user that can break through walls in combination with its ability.

Of course, the subject of this weeks teambuilding competition, fezandipiti was probably the most difficult mon to make work. I started out with a more offensive calm mind set, then pivoted to a NP set, and then gave up and decided to just follow the OP and use an SD set. This is a set that can work both defensively and offensively, being able to take hits and sweep if needed. The ev spread is to make sure fezan can outspeed mimikyu and break its disguise before it attacks. SD of course makes sure fezan can boost itself in order to hit harder. Play rough is a good stab option, while dual wingbeat has two purposes. The first is to hit fairy resistant targets such as amoonguss while still hitting grass types super effectively and the second is to break focus sashes and mimikyu's disguise. It also means that you get two potential procs of toxic chain. Okay, I basically teched dual wingbeat in order to break disguise, the other things are side benefits. Roost allows fezandipiti to keep itself healthy over the course of a battle. Tera flying allows fezan to ignore ground type moves and boost the power of dual wingbeat.

With Thundurus-T leaving the tier, I wanted to try out a different electric type to see how they worked. I originally had Thundy-I and while it worked well, it felt really frail. I decided to go with magnezone which is a lot bulkier and provides some serious firepower, basically acting as our specs user. Normally, magnezone runs magnet pull in order to trap some steel types, and while this was good, I felt that analytic was a lot better. The only two steel types that are really threatened by magnezone are empoleon and forretress, one is a good mon, but the other is meh and is exploitable. With anayltic, magnezone hits like a truck, even resists such as cyclizar take massive damage from resisted hits. The speed evs are to underspeed most things, but still outspeed the normal enam-t spread, which is nice as earth power hurts. The moves are standard, with mirror coat providing some utility by smacking fire types hard.

I really wanted to use cyclizar, but it just didn't fit into the team structure, so I went with noivern as our flying type and hazard removal. This is the standard NU utility set, with defog to remove hazards, roost to keep itself healthy, u-turn to get teammates in and hurricane as stab so it isn't a free switch in. Tera steel is a good defensive typing on it, being able to take rock and ice moves. It's basically just a bread and butter set, not much more.

I have not used hippowdon much in RU, but I decided to give it a whirl on this team. This is a standard hippo set, with rocky helmet and tera ghost taking on most physical attackers. E-quake does decent damage, stealth rock is the hazard option on this team to make sure opponents don't switch endlessly, slack off provides recovery and whirlwind can phase out setup sweepers. Really, not much innovation but its good and gets the job done.

I needed a fast mon on the team, and although other mons were appealing, gengar I thought was the best of the bunch. Gengar is also probably the most customisable of the over base 100 mons, with many utility options at its disposal. I decided to go with a toxic spikes set, which can be devestating to an unprepared team which overelies on cyclizar to keep hazards off. This also helps break open walls which don't pack HDB, such as chansey, chesnaught and hippo. The rest of the moveset is standard, with shadow ball and sludge wave as stabs and t-bolt to hit empoleon and flying types for big damage.

Finally, I needed a choice scarf user for the team, and I found that my rain matchup was a bit dicey. Choice scarf barraskewda fixes both of these issues, being able to abuse opposing rain and still act as a solid revenge killer. With jolly instead of adamant, barra can always outspeed +1 cyclizar and revenge kill it, opening up the door for gengar to sweep later. Flip turn allows barra to get some damage off and get out of a situation. Liquidation is a good stab move for barra, while close combat can hurt opposing cyclizar and empoleon. Crunch along with tera dark can help deal with the many psychic types in the tier such as iron leaves, slowbro and reuniclus, with it having a chance to OHKO the first and 2hit ko'ing the other two.

 

[2inpress]

1200 Speed barraskewda in rain about to outspeed scarf tailwind users

 

[Sneakyplanner]

I had forgotten to post voting for the teambuilding contest but I'm going to abuse my power to psost after the deadline.

Remember when Magfez was the most annoying thing in the tier? This is a team built around fairy spam with mag to deal with jirachi and empoleon. Once the steels are gone, garde and fez can clean up many teams pretty easily. Beyond the core, cyclizar is there because this is RU, krookodile is the only real offensive rocker in the tier and needed psychic immune, and Gapdos is a fun way to vent your anger with choice band brave birds vs a team whose flying resist was trapped and destroyed.

 

[Sneakyplanner]

It's time for voting:
Mr craw semistall(?) by fluff!!
SD fez BO by Heatranator
Magfez fairy spam by Sneakyplanner
My vote goes to fluff, the team looks surprisingly good despite having a bronzong and I love craw voltturn.

 

[FlamingoPokeman]

Heatranator for unironically loading Scarf on our fastest viable mon

 

[Heatranator]

fluff!! for making a team that is so creative that it looks dumb (but a good kind of dumb)

 

[HoopsspooH]

sneaky

 

[THE_CHUNGLER]

Heatranator. Sd fez+mag is some hot fire, scarf skewda also sounds crazy for revenging Car at +2. I faced fluff a few times on ladder and that team is very solid as well.

 

[2inpress]

Voting for heatranator. mag - noivern -fez work really well i've found

 

[Sneakyplanner]

Congratulations to Heatranator for winning this week, thank you to everyone who participated.

 

[Sneakyplanner]

Week 11: Swampert

It's time for the objective best starter to get its spotlight. Swampert has been kind of overlooked so far, not seeing much success so far, but there's no way that the iconic bulky watertype is unviable in Rarelyused, right? Swampert brings a lot to its teams. It has a wonderful typing and great bulk, knock off, stealth rock and flip turn. It's a utility machine! And it's being such a good parent to that marshtomp, how could you not love it?

Teambuilding criteria:
Your team submission must be legal in SV RU and have a swampert on it. Maybe avoid enamorus therian since it might not be here much longer.

Submission deadline: Teams should be submitted by 11:59 PM (GMT-4) on Friday, May 24th, voting will then go until 11:59 PM (GMT-4) on Sunday May 16th.

 

[Heatranator]

Swampert + Brute Bonnet BO Team
https://pokepast.es/b09198a1632244f1

So, I decided to mostly stick to the usual sets (I say mostly since I have to make a weird set, it's in my contract) and I think I mostly succeeded. This is a team that uses swampert as a defensive wall combined with other walls that can do solid damage to allow for fast teammates to clean up. This team also heavily punishes enam-t because I hate that mon.

I wanted to mostly stick with the usual set for swampert, but something kept nagging me in the back of my mind. Swampert is a great mon, but it feels like it doesn't contribute enough. And that's when it hit me, swampert feels passive on its normal sets. Yes, knock off is good, but stuff like enam-t can abuse swampert as a set up opportunity. This opens the door for scary sweepers to get in that can take swamperts moves and can lead to a game lose. So this is where I innovated. Since stealth rocks can be used by a lot of good mons, I dropped it in favour of ice punch. This lets it deal with dragons and flying types easier. The attack evs are to make sure standard cyclizar is always 2hit ko'd by it. This can also 3hit ko enamorus-t (who I now hate since ladder decided to actually start using it for once) and salamence is 2hit ko'd after an intimidate. The rest of the moves are standard, e-quake for stab, knock to remove items and flip turn for pivoting and doing good chip.

I have finally conceeded, I have used cyclizar on an RU team. The set is mostly standard but there are three changes I went with. Overheat allows cyclizar to hit steel types that usually wall it such as forretress (who I encountered a ton of and this attests to this tech being good) and cobalion for big damage. I decided to swap the nature to timid in order to maximise its damage. Finally, tera fire helps against opposing fairies but can also help boost the power of overheat if needed. Rest of the set you know and love (or hate in my case) because cyclizar is everywhere.

I decided to choose cobalion for the team as it is a fast mon that can set up stealth rocks. Tera ghost allows it to stay in on fighting moves and set up while meaning even at low health it can deal with maushold. Stealth rocks gives the team a form of entry hazards, iron defense allows it to wall opponents easier while boosting up body press, which is a good stab move and makes cobalion a deadly lategame cleaner if resists and ghosts are out of the picture. Finally, t-wave can disrupt a lot of mons sweeps which could potentially be problematic for the team. Overall, cobalion provides a good wall to the team that can also sweep and provide utility.

Haven't used gardevoir a whole lot in RU, but man, this thing slaps. This is basically the standard scarf set, which works wonders for revenge killing and abusing rain. The only innovations here are tera electric and thunderbolt, which allow gardevoir to properly smack rain and make sure it doesn't try any neat tricks. For example, tera electric thunderbolt has good odds to OHKO basc-f from full, with just rocks guarenteeing the ko. This basically is just a good mon that can threaten things for good damage on a switch. Also has a chance to OHKO enam-t which is nice.

This is why I have the "mostly" in the intro, because this is the major deviation. I needed a grass type for the team in order to do better against rain but breloom was too frail, amoonguss was too passive and chesnaught, while I did consider it, was not as good since synthesis would not be healing for much in rain. I thus decided to dip into NU for my grass type and brute bonnet stood out (vileplume was okay, but didn't mesh with the team). This is the standard NU tank set, with AV to really make it tanky on the special side. For reference, an enam-t moonblast or armarouge armour cannon is nowhere close to ko'ing from full. Seed bomb is a good stab optiona and with tera grass, which has useful defensive applications, can be a really deadly option. Sucker punch allows bonnet to pick off opponents from low health. CC deals with steel types like cobalion that might wall it and crunch is a good dark stab move. Overall, brute bonnet does amazingly on the team and I am shocked it isn't on the VR.

The flying type on the team was really hard to decide, but I went with thundurus incarnate for the last slot. Thundy is a great mon in the tier that can do solid damage and in this team it can really put on the hurt. I decided to go with max hp as when I ran the calcs, thundy actually still got the important 2hit ko's it needed while making it much bulkier. For example, a +1 enam-t moonblast only has a small chance (18%) to kill from full. Meanwhile, thundy can 2hit ko enam back with thunderbolt despite it being at +1 special defense. The set is a bit weird, but works well. Thunderbolt is a good stab option, knock off is annoying for any mon to switch into, u-turn allows thundy to pivot out and sludge wave can hit annoying enam-t's and grass types for big damage.

 

[2inpress]

I was still tinkering with this team, so didn't want to drop it yet, but with the lack of teams being uploaded this week, I think I should be serving before the dish is burnt. So I present to you:

Skewdaless rain:

https://pokepast.es/86f86e3b90492503

I'm gonna be completely honest, I didn't base this team around swampert at all, the team was based around a generation 8 OU-niche using specs salamence in rain, and with thundurus-therian leaving the tier, there are (as of writing this) no electric types in the tier. The steel types that resist it (like cobalion) tend to have a secondary type that's weak to it, making hurricane absolutely terrifying. Even the things that switch into it, can't keep doing so. Even if you don't end up using this team, salamence is seriously strong and I recommend giving it a swing with a more serious rain team (it works really well with skewda, ironically, for a nice mix of special and physical.

You know the toad, I know the toad, it has basically 1 moveset, and that's it. the reason I run rest on it is to get it healthy to switch in and out to keep setting rain, as this team rather needs it.

A pretty standard bulky set that can clear haza.... yeaaaaa don't use upper hand if you want to use this team (which I know probably nobody does) It's an anti bisharp measure (and qa terrakion seriously who uses that) as it tends to need to take a lot of hits troughout the battle to keep hazards off and just checks a lot of usefull stuff even without mach punch.

It doens't really pair all that well with mence, but seriously what electric type am I supposed to work with in a rain team? Thundurus just doesn't have the same vibes and +1SpAtk +1Speed when you get the download boosts gives just such a dopamine boost it's crazy. Terra fire as steel types are the only things that switch into this (kinda), but ghost, electric are all fine alternatives. Honestly don't remember the last time I used trick as you REALLY need the speed when you don't have a single swiftswim user / barraskewda, but it's there if you need it.

If you're thinking we're finally getting meta, you're mistaken. This serves as a fast pivoter that resists some massive gaps in the team, both fire and ground moves get giga-abused by this team and because people panic seeing revavroom expecting setup, you have a lot of freedom in what you want to do. If you want to use this team seriously, I recommend switching thief for something usefull (temper flare tends to catch a lot of people off guard, but this thing gets a surprisingly fun movepool so go wild).
If you are sub 1100 and want to cheese? Use magnet rise - shift gear - 2 random attacking moves whatever to have a setupmon that has 0 weaknesses in rain.

oh the 'star' of the show, ofcourse. Used a more standard set with rocks, but it was rather boring and didn't do a whole lot for the team. Instead going for a bit of a stranger set. the hp-spdef used to have a specific reason, but might not anymore with all the bans happening (think it was volcanion so we good?). Sand tomb is to trap the bulky waters like gastro thinking they can get up free rocks (jokes on me, they can) to catch them offguard. Sand tomb instead of whirlpool for the water absorb mons (flying types aren't switching into swapert and risking ice punch). If you're a serious gamer, probably just go for ice punch, poison jab, ...

 

[fluff!!]

oops wrong tier

(click the sprites for paste!)

sry i loaded my NU team can we rematch?

Goodra + Talonflame is a super fun core I have been toying around with great success, so I figured I'd slap Swampert in and start from there. This is about the most classic Swampert set you can make, I end up loading 2 Knockers later down the line so I went with Earthquake to threaten Crawdaunt and Okidogi. Wo-Chien completes the Water/Fire/Grass core and is your main tool against physical HO threats. It also has a very good matchup against Psychics in general. Magnezone is our special breaker, creating a VoltTurn core with Swampert and Mienshao while threatening Fairies. It can be replaced with any Electric. Mienshao brings speed control and is our physical attacker. Getting purposefully knocked against Stall gives you a Regenerator mon who's a pain to deal with.

 

[Sneakyplanner]

The combo of swampert and wish jirachi came to me in a dream. They got good type synergy, swampert lets you run a jirachi without rocks and wish jirachi lets you heal up swampert. The rest of the team is there to fill out a sorty fat, sorta voltturny team where everything is desperately trying to not instalose to slowbro.
I finally found a team that can use a spinner other than cyclizar! Tsareena is important here as a grass type to answer rhyperior/slowbro and clear hazards. WIsh support lets it play the long game in a way that tsareena usually struggles with.
I will not lose to slowbro, I really really really do not like losing to slowbro. I usually preach the virtues of body press volc, but sludge bomb poisons can cripple cyclizar almost as well and I really really don't want to lose to slowbro as it shrugs off steam eruptions, constantly regenerator shuffles between itself and cyclizar and predicts me every turn.
the ol' reliable filler bozos. Mienshao used to be a raikou and then I thought "fastest mon raikou is very bad" and now it's the always useful scarf shao. Salamence is bulkier than I normally build it, but this team needs it to play that bulky role.

 

[Sneakyplanner]

It's time for voting. This week's entries are:
Swampert+brute bonnet BO by Heatranator
Skewdaless rain by 2inpress
Neverused teambuilding contest entry by fluff!!
Wish swampert by Sneakyplanner
My vote goes to 2inpress, I feel like rain swampert is pretty good and really underexplored.

 

[Heatranator]

Fluff!! cause how tf does he keep doing it. I need to learn his tricks

 

[2inpress]

I always try to try teams out before voting, and trying the NU team I got 6-0’d by every single hippo I encountered. So I’m voting for sneaky (even though mence has the wrong item)

 

[Rarelyme]

voting sneaky because we need to use tsareena more

 

[Elec-ant1234]

votin' for sneaky cause the team seems pretty interesting, and it uses a spinner that isn't regenvest cyclizar number 5413

 

[fluff!!]

voting for Heatranator

 

[Sneakyplanner]

The winner this week is me , thank you to everyone who participated.

 

[FlamingoPokeman]

Week 12: Bellibolt

This week I am taking the reigns and, to nobody's surprise, we're building around our lovable Bellibolt!
While this bodacious icon gets some slack from the community for being a funny looking guy, it remains quite relevant in recent tournament play, going an astounding 6-0 thus far in RUPL. Bellibolt has two great abilities in Electromorphosis and Static which can make it a great support mon for a lot of structures. On top of this, its mono-Electric typing means it is only weak to Ground, making it good as a physical wall in a relatively offensive meta lacking solid options for Ground types.
Will you build around Bellibolt as a slow Electro Volt turner, a hard-to-kill Toxic spammer or a Static wall on a ParaSpam team?

Teambuilding criteria:
Your team submission must be legal in SV RU and have a Bellibolt on it.

Submission deadline: Teams should be submitted by 11:59 PM (GMT-4) on Friday, May 31st, voting will then go until 11:59 PM (GMT-4) on Sunday, June 2nd.