Project RarelyUsed Teambuilding Competition: week 10: Fezandipiti (submissions open until May 17th)

[Sneakyplanner]

This is a modification of an idea I had for the rhyperior week. Basically it's a hazard staxck team that instead of using palossand for spinblocking, just has multiple mons that really exploit cyclizar. Chesnaught easily switches in and it's a hazard settier, rhyperior easily switches in and threatens big damage.
: The core: two big beefy boys with big damage and big utility. Rhyperior is just the best mon in the game and chesnaught is good because it beats rhyperior. I initially had rocks on rhyperior, but I didn't really like it because it is just so much more fun to use it for damage. I've been considering SD protect for leftovers recovery and scouting moves, but slowbro is just too much of a problem.
: The support: these three just go on every team, not much to say about it besides the fact gardevoir is both trick and healing wish because its coverage is kinda useless when you need to deal with all of molt, emp and jirachi and healing wish works really well with a beefy trade machine like rhyp. I normally use roar on moltres these days, but I went with u-turn here because jirachi covers setup mons and u-turn helps you bring in garde more often. It's tera poison and 288 speed because okidogi is a real problem for this team.
: tonight the role of tinkaton will be played by jirachi. This set came to me as I was being sad about tink being gone. with CM spam being a problem for many teams, I cried because we no longer have encore tink, then realized that encore jirachi is almost as good.

 

[THE_CHUNGLER]

ON THE KUMMUK SPIKES
/ / / / /


This team was actually birthed by my desire to use Alolan Muk, rather than Chesnaught. I thought muk would be a really nice defensive piece and progress maker on a spikes team due to its particularly threatening poison touch knock off to remove opposing boots.

This isn’t a new strategy, RU stall teams have used Muk and Chesnaught in tandem to great success, so I wanted to try a variation that has a little bit more offensive oomph and revenge killing power. This, I hoped, would allow me to use Cyclizar over Talonflame as is commonly seen on these stall teams, and avoid the obligation to use Chansey as well.



So, let’s start with our team of the week piece, Chesnaught. I was going to use the standard set with knock off, however, after the team came together, I realized I probably had enough knock off between the rest of the members, so I could afford to run roar instead to rack up spikes damage and phase out dangerous sd sweepers like iron leaves and bisharp.

<—THIS UGLY BASTARD IS KNOCKING OFF HOT CHICKS , FIND OUT HOW YOU CAN TOO BELOW VVV

Now the other centerpiece, Alolan Muk. Another standard set with rest talk for longevity, but I run quite a bit of speed to get the jump on enamorus-t, which is an absolute demon for this team to face. If it tera poisons, at least I can knock the boots and rack up hazard damage later, but it’s still pretty precarious.



I needed a way to deny Cyclizar from spinning, and while Chesnaught is an ok candidate to tera ghost and block spin, it would have to keep taking Draco from bike. I wanted to try Tera Ghost Sticky Hold Rocky helmet Gastrodon, as I’ve seen it used before to annoy bike. It can’t get its helmet knocked off which means it’s a permenant annoyance to bike, especially one that continue to take hazard damage. Sludge bomb + Earth Power is great coverage and lets me fish for poison chances unlike ice beam or surf. Max defense lets gastrodon handle some physical attackers along with chesnaught. Stealth rocks are also necessary on hazard stack, and chesnaught has spikes covered.



Cyclizar is a great spinner, has all of the qualities we like about it. I have double edge to potentially revenge enamorus-t and still do decent damage to thundurus. Assault vest is necessary on this team A-Muk can’t handle special threats alone.



I need a revenge killer on this team, preferably one that can stick around and clean up lategame with hazards up. Zapdos-G is in my opinion the best most spammable scarf in the tier, and has knockturn for removing boots and keeping momentum. It’s also immune to spikes itself and takes neutral damage from rocks. Speaking of, Tera fighting is used to take less damage from rocks unlike tera flying. Zapdos is also a great check to bisharp which is otherwise looking like a huge threat.



The last mon on this team needed to be a steel or resist many of the things steel does, so jirachi is a good fit as it is on many teams. Because my team is already so defensive, I liked the idea of superrachi with psychic noise as a way to make damage stick to bulkier pokemon. It’s also a good reuniclus check when muk can’t quite stop it by itself, which is important for spikestack. I think you could use a different rachi set here, like meteor beam with iron head, protective pads, or one of my favorites, Wish+CM.

REPLAY ZONE
Vs Cyclizar BO: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2117150747

Vs Stall:https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2117161636

 

[Sneakyplanner]

Time for voting:
SD chesnaught hyper offense by Heatranator
ye olde Palossand spikes by fluff!!
Rhypnaught hazard stack by Sneakyplanner
a-muk spikes featuring superachi by THE_CHUNGLER

My vote goes to the chungler, but I like the classic palossand spikes too

 

[THE_CHUNGLER]

Choosing between cm iron head rachi and sd+3 rhyperior might be the hardest choice I’ve had to make, I will go with Fluff this time

 

[Heatranator]

Chungler, muk alola supremacy

 

[Forest Guardian]

I vote for Chungler

 

[Rarelyme]

chungler because I'm in the muk-a train too

 

[Sneakyplanner]

Congrats to this week's winner: the chungler with the amuk spikes

 

[Sneakyplanner]

Week 9: Terrakion

This week's focus is cobalion's less popular, thicker younger sibling. As cobalion has taken the spoitlihgt, terrakion has seemed to fade away. It's less popular than it used to be despite still being terrakion. There are many ways you can build with terrakion. A suicide lead with big offensive power, a choice scarfer that outspeeds iron leaves, a raw wallbreaker with choice band or one of the strongest boosters in the tier with swords dance. However you want to use it, share your best terrakion teams here.

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

Submission deadline: Teams should be submitted by 11:59 PM (GMT-4) on Friday, May 10th, voting will then go until 11:59 PM (GMT-4) on Sunday May 12th.

 

[Heatranator]

Triple Fighting Partial Sticky Web Team with Quick Attack Terrakion
(Yes, the title is long, but it perfectly describes the team)

God, this team took so long to make. Went through 3 different iterations of different teamstyles (first a more balance team and then a triple psychic team), but this one was the best by far. This is a team that abuses the three strongest fighters in the tier with sticky webs that can still function pretty well if sticky webs don't go up.

Of course the subject of this teambuilding comp, this terrakion is a bit special. The main issue with terrakion is that while it is fast, there are some things in the meta it cannot outspeed reliably and due to its only okay bulk, it can struggle against more offensive teams. This is where the tech of this set comes in, tera normal quick attack terrakion. At +2 and by using tera normal, terrakion can pick off fast offensive threats from high ranges with only a bit of chip. Both barra and gardevoir can be potentially OHKO'd from full, while cyclizar will be ko'd from 70% health. This is big for it and mean that only ghost types can take on the combo of fighting and normal, which are walled by terrakion if it tera's at the right time. The rest of the set is standard, sd to boost, LO for switching potential and good damage, CC for fighting stab and rock slide for a more consistent rock stab (I refuse to use stone edge unless necessary).

The sticky web setter of the team, I chose galvantula over araquanid due to its speed tier. The main thing it tries to do is get sticky webs up, and then potentially do good damage with its stab moves. Thunder is 91% accurate with compound eyes, so it is a great option. I chose screech in the last slot because it can help this mostly physical orientated team, though t-wave or another attack like energy ball or volt switch can work too.

The speed control of the team and first defog punisher of the team, gapdos can do big damage and clean up games quite easily. The set is a standard scarf set. Close combat and brave bird are excellent stab options and with tera fighting, it can hit extremely hard. Knock off hits ghost and psychic types that wall cc, and u-turn to pivot in and out.

The main special attacker of the team and spin blocker of the team, basc-f is able to accomplish a variety of roles in a battle. With mystic water, adaptability and tera water, surf is going to do a lot of damage. Combine that with shadow ball, and only cyclizar can wall it. This is remedied by ice beam, which does a lot to cyclizar and other dragons or grass types in the tier. Finally, agility is an option if you get a free turn in order to outspeed most things in the meta unboosted, with only the fast normal types (who can't hit it for a lot of damage), barra (not doing much to it) and fast ghost types outspeeding it.

A mon that I was more hesistant to include, breloom does a lot of work on this team and can be a really powerful attacker. The set is mostly standard, mach punch gives good priority, bullet seed with loaded dice does a lot of damage, rock tomb can hit flying types for big damage and bulldoze can do solid damage while making sure breloom can outspeed other threats. Tera rock boosts the power of rock tomb and gives it a resistance to flying and fire.

The second defog punisher of the team, bisharp was chosen in order to deal with the ghost and psychic types this team could otherwise struggle a bit with, while also helping against the occasional magic bounce espeon and opposing sticky web teams by getting a defiant boost every time it switches in. The set is standard, tera flying to resist fighting type moves and be immune to ground, sd to set up, iron head and throat chop for stab and sucker punch for priority. Don't sleep on bisharp, it is definetely a really great mon on this team and will carry you to victory.


Threats:
Cobalion is a mon that can be dealt with by the team, but can be annoying to play around. This is specifically talking about the iron defense variant, as that takes not a lot of damage if it sets up. Basc-f can wall it and do good damage, but that's the main thing that can stop it. Preferably, try to make sure cobalion doesn't get an id off by playing offensively enough it can't switch in.
Not necessarily threatening the team for huge damage, but can massively disrupt the gameplan. Basc-f can stop it spinning, but knock off does hurt it a lot, doing around 50%. Ice beam chunks it for a lot though. Bisharp, gapdos and breloom can also outspeed it and do big damage to it, but watch out for any tera ghosts if gapdos and breloom are used to kill it.

 

[FlamingoPokeman]

Reserving the Terrakion + Cyclizar + Jirachi team

 

[THE_CHUNGLER]

Reserving the Terrakion + Cyclizar + Jirachi team

shit core so go ahead

 

[HoopsspooH]

CB Terrakion Slowbro C-Team



The main angle I wanted when building this week was to make a Terrakion team that didn’t want to pull their hair out when facing Slowbro matchups, and while I didn’t find any Slowbros testing, I can guarentee you I did pull some of my hair trying to get this team to work against the cesspool that is ladder.

While originally I wanted to use a Taunt SD set to lure in Hippowdon after a Tera Fly, I’ve found the initial power level of Terrakion to be incredibly lackluster, and so I’ve pivoted to a banded set. This provides that extra kick that Terrakion really needs in order to make notable progress. I do still think Tera Flying is good, as it helps with the growing amount of Scarf Krooks and the aforementioned Hippo, but I’d say that Tera Fighting is probable equally as viable. What’s cool about Terrakion’s ability is that, unlike it’s former SoJ member Cobalion, it can actually use it to a decent degree, essentially negating the loss of a Choice Band if you do get Knocked by things like Cyclizar. I’m running SD as last just in case you do get Knocked and find yourself having a free turn, allowing you to become a +3 breaker.

I really wanted to give Bro a hard time with this team, and I found Krook to be pretty good at that job. Knock really dissuades Bro from ever coming in hard, and EQ can threaten Tera Electric if they’re prepped for Jirachi shenanigans. Taunt as last can neutralize the threat of opposing rocks from Hippo, as well as stop general setup from the HO infested ladder. Tera Poison helps with the Fairy and Fighting matchup.

You know what bike does.

Terrakion definitely enjoys the extra chip from Toxic, so I decided to pair one of the best toxic spreaders in the tier with it. Standard Fezandipiti spread, I’m personally not a fan of Taunt Fez, but it could be ran if desired, Tera Water helps out against the rain matchup. Generally just here to help support Terrakion breaking ability.

The best check to Bro is undoubtedly your own Bro, and that’s just what we have here. CM PsyNoise should generally beat other Bros, and Scald provides disruption against physical attackers. This is super fishy, but I’m running Tera Dark, which primarily blocks other PsyNoises from opposing Bros, but additionally makes Knocks from threats like Krookodile be resisted.

Probably my favorite mon in the tier right now, Mence provides a ground immunity for the team, as well as another Physical Attacker deterrent through Intimidate. I’m running mixed to do great chip to Fezandipitis and Rachis on the switch in with EQ, and the rest is standard for SpAtk Mence. Tera Fairy is preferred over Steel here as a way to more thoroughly deal with opposing Dragons, which can threaten the team otherwise.

WARNING

Do not matchup into Yanmega, you will get flinch exactly as many times as necessary for them to win the game

 

[Heatranator]

Probably my favorite mon in the tier right now, Mence provides a ground immunity for the team, as well as another Physical Attacker deterrent through Intimidate. I’m running mixed to do great chip to Fezandipitis and Rachis and the switch in, and the rest is standard for SpAtk Mence. Tera Fairy is preferred over Steel here as a way to more thoroughly deal with opposing Dragons, which can threaten the team otherwise

There are 4 EVs that are not utilised on mence. I'm guessing attack would be where they go.

 

[fluff!!]

Experimental Classic HO

(click the sprites for paste!)

My objective was to build an HO team with sets rarely seen in this archetype without using Kleavor or any member of the forbidden trio of broken braindead low skill ho mons known as Iron Leaves/Revavroom/Blastoise.

The suicide lead of the team. I go Swords Dance over Taunt as Taunt doesn't help against Kleavor and I'd much rather boost to +2 instead of tauting potential Stealth Rock users like Jirachi or Krook and trying to play the guessing game of "will they Stealth Rock or attack". Rock Blast acts as a (more) accurate Rock STAB than can potentially prevent Araquanid and Kleavor from setting their hazard (they both have a 50% chance of getting OHKOed by a 3-hit Rock Blast), but since I made this team to be resilient to Stealth Rock, you may change it for Stone Edge for better damage against Necrozma. I do, however, like the opportunity of KOing Kleavor or Araquanid through their Sash and having a Terrakion with an intact Focus Sash against opposing HO.

A Pokemon that I wanted to try for a while. The Weakness Policy/Endure set is MU fishy and cringe and if you play it you're a very bad person. Armarouge is quite bulky naturally, allowing it to almost always avoid a 3HKO against Scarf Gardevoir and is able to use a Cyclizar trying to Spin or Knock as an opportunity to proc Weak Armor. Tera Grass allows Armarogue to tank a hit against Rain threats, mainly Barraskweda, as Rain is a tough matchup.

The big priority user. Revenge kills squishy targets like Gardevoir, or Tera Ground Revavroom/Yanmega, Krookodile... Swords Dance allows Crawdaunt to break fat CM users if given an opportunity to use it, but you will generally force a Tera out of them and then can phaze them with Red Card Mimikyu. Fat CM Psychics aren't a fan of burning Tera if your Armarouge is still healthy, as it will then be able to beat them.

Agility allows Enam to outspeed anything unboosted and fire off Moonblasts first. This thing can dismantle entire teams unprepared for this set, especially if it also finds the opportunity to also get a Calm Mind boost, which is not that unlikely considering its bulk and typing.

I couldn't escape it, ladder is ladder and Red Card Mimikyu is just too good at being an anti-bullshit measure.

IDBP Cobalion is usually seen in BO or Balance teams, but that doesn't mean HO can't make use of it. IDBP Cobalion is a fantastic answer to Bisharp and Maushold, and can 1v1 both Iron Leaves and Revavroom thanks to Tera Ghost.


Rain is unwinnable but such is the fate of HO. (I did beat the Rain sample on my first test of the team though, somehow)

No replay but here's proof of the team winning against the #3 player on ladder. Keeping their team hidden (replay is private so probably wants to keep their team hidden). I will say however, Crawdaunt forcing a fat CM psychic to burn Tera helped tremendously.

 

[2inpress]

When you have a bad day

https://pokepast.es/b7a8db925241282a

I had a weird little idea to get some unusual synergies, when playtesting the team is wildly unspectacular, but due to how incredibly unfortunate you can get, I thought I needed to share.

Used as a bit of an antilead. It has a good matchup with almost all the common entry hazards that like to come in early (kleavor, araquanid, galvantula, ...). It tends to drop quite low early in the game but can stay relevant with high speed stat. Terra ghost is only there if you need to avoid a speedboosted fighting type attack, or avoiding an espeed sweep when mimikyu is dead.

simply too good at stopping sweeps from happening, which this team is quite susceptible to. Gets to clean up a lot of stuff thanks to burns and toxics being passed around a lot. Set is pretty standard so wont elaborate further.

criminally underutilised mon. It has 28 speed EV's to barely flip turn out of the way on hippo, its special attack always kills thundurus therian with a draco meteor and it has the added benefit on hitting some 2HKO treshholds with sludge bomb. It doesn't switch in on everything you would expect or want it to (notably, it does NOT beat iron leaves) so be careful with it.

The metagame hasn't been kind to rotoms, but it deals with some things I absolutely needed done. Firstly: its a fast fairy resist that can deal with enamorus-therian (being ground imune helps a lot here). levitate lets it come in on quite some physical attackers and get a fast will-o-wisp off, tanks don't want to get tricked a choice scarf. Added bonus is that a levitating steel type is disgusting to deal with if you choose to terra.
Added bonus is that thundurus, expecting volt switch, really doesn't want to switch into overheat. with 2 overheats having a solid chance to kill.

Really unsure about the specific set, but the defensive typing works really well. I've been swapping between sets every few matches and I really can't find any consistency with any of them. Getting a more defensive set that can potentially set hazards, U-turn and use meteor beam could would probably get better results, but I might aswell show of the tech.

Comes in and straight up sits on so many physical attackers. It's there's quite a few things that can be swapped out dependant on your needs but i've found this set to do work against most teams regardless of the matchup. Defense and hp is to not get 2HKO'd by certain stuff, terra can give time to neutralise something that could of swept otherwise.


The reason for the title is this: basically every set completely relies on a move that hits most of the time, but not all the time, having middling results when it works, and devestating results when it doesn't. Terrakion missing rock blast on a sticky web user, both rotom and altaria missing will o wisp (the latter also missing overheat), mimikyu missing play rough, dragalge missing draco meteor, jirachi missing meteor beam...
Things can be quite smooth with this team, but when luck isn't on your side, it's completely unplayable.

 

[Sneakyplanner]

mukbro balance with terrakion

This team was basically just born from me thinking that slowbro+amuk+hippo is a really solid physdef wall+ spdef wall core at the moment. Amuk covers slowbro's weaknesses well and slowbro+hippo covers the mons that can exploit muk like cobalion, bisharp and krook well. Amuk is just a really fun mon to use in general, and I went with resttalk here because it's fun and I feel like it exploits the fat cores that are growing in popularity as well as making it an actual switch into slowbro. You can't scald burn it, can't chip it with hazards, can't stop it from healing with psychic noise. If attacks didn't exists then it would be unkillable.
The star of the show is terrakion though. SubSD is a set that I used to use a lot, and only stopped when hippo rejoined the tier. But now that whirlwind hippo is falling off and slowbro rising in popularity as a physwall again, subSD seems like a good way to catch opponents by surprise and do some damage vs both offense and defense. Tera grass lets you sub vs slowbro and hippo, and then your stabs are just really good vs everything but okidogi. Another benefit of subSD is that you can throw off a lot of offensive counterplay with the sub. Revenge killing a terrakion with a sub up is impossible. You're going to be losing something when trying, and that something might just be the only mon faster than it that you have.
these guys are filler, they do their jobs and do them well but are not exciting.

 

[Forest Guardian]

https://pokepast.es/b64bb36b4f58bd87
​

Ahh palossand spikes, let's start with the star of this weeks competition

: Terrakion makes for an excellent clear with it's beating speed. With spikes even scarf terrakion packs a punch (duh).

Stone Edge and Close Combat make for strong STAB moves allowing Terrakion to deal hefty chunks of damage. Earthquake and. X-Scissor round out the move set giving terrakion a colorful array of moves with which it shalacks the tier.

: Aww such a cutie. Knockturn Azelf seems to be forgotten and people seem to use the bad lead set (yuck) or the ok Nasty Plot. set. Knock Off and U-Turn are excellent moves to have and Azelf has a good attacking Stat to actually deal damage unlike the. pitifully weak . STAB Psychic (or Psyshock) and Flamethrower are great moves to have and Azelf also dunks on one of the. most popular psychic resist in .

: Klefki is a great tool against Hyper Offense thanks to it's passable bulk as well as it's ability to mess with 'mons via Thunder Wave. Spikes (duh), Thunder Wave (duh) Play Rough and Foul Play make up it's moveset. Its a pretty standard Mon and I have. grown a liking towards it.

: The Sand castle is the anchor of this team by preventing cyclizar from spinning while checking monster like , Dragon Dance heck with Tera water even rain. Stealth Rocks, Scorching Sands, Shadow Ball and Shore Up is the standard set.

: I have always hated mence due to it's role in Sword n Shield UnderUsed (I still do) and it's sometimes quite underwhelming. The. EVs make sure it outspeeds Jolly as well as Adamant Vroom and anything slower while still hitting decently hard with it's. high powered STAB combo + either of Flamethrower or Earthquake.

: It's the team's main breaker with an excellent STAB combo which includes the universally accepted God tier moves in Knock Off. and Earthquake. Crunch for stronger hits vs knocked stuff and Gunk Shot for : Enamorus-Therian:

Thanks for reading!

 

[Sneakyplanner]

It's time for voting
Triple Fighting Partial Sticky Web Team with Quick Attack Terrakion or TFPSWQAT by Heatranator
Slowbro hate by HoopsspooH
Lead terrakion hyper offense by fluff!!
Anti-lead terrakion by 2inpress
Slowmuk balance featuring SD terrakion by Sneakyplanner
Weekly palossand spikes by Forest Guardian
My vote goes to forest guardian because I think klefki is mad underrated right now

 

[Rarelyme]

I'll go forest guardian too

 

[fluff!!]

voting for sneaky

 

[Heatranator]

Forest Guardian
I feel like you had fun coming up with the acronym for my team aka the TFPSWQAT

 

[2inpress]

My vote goes to Heatran, triple fighting type while having synergies that still somehow work is pretty cool IMO

 

[THE_CHUNGLER]

Sneakyplanner, i like using the bulk of Terrak to set up

 

[Sneakyplanner]

The winner this week is Forest Guardian

thanks to everyone who participated