SM UU M-Ampharos Bulky Offense

[Uncle Tonkle]

Introduction​

Hey guys, I'm a guy that decides to pop into Showdown every half a year to battle some. My main tier is usually UU, because I like the mons that tend to be in there. Lately I've been seeing some moderate success with this team on the lower ladder of USUM UU. Was wondering what people had to say about it! Any pointers, suggestions or other advice is welcome of course. I definitely feel like the new additions to UU could be somewhat problematic to this team, but so far none of them have felt like I couldn't deal with them at all. Gliscor leaving is really nice for the team, so it's not all bad.

trapinch puppets (Scizor) @ Leftovers
Ability: Technician
EVs: 248 HP / 36 Def / 224 SpD
Impish Nature
- Defog
- Bullet Punch
- U-turn
- Roost
​

Scizor is such a staple for UU now. I think I haven't seen a team without it in at least 10 games. What can I say, it's just such a good mon. It tanks the dragon type moves I don't want Alolan Muk to take when there's a lot of special attack on the enemy team, especially since it can U-turn after vs Hydreigon or Latias. If I like having it at full, I'll roost instead. If I'm afraid of a fire move I'll double to Swampert to scout. Pretty standard UU stuff.

moba monkey (Infernape) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Iron Fist
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Flare Blitz
- Close Combat
- Mach Punch
- U-turn
​

This guy usually ends up functioning as my sweeper and, courtesy of the scarf, works nice as a fast counterpart to all my bulky behemoths. U-turn for momentum, mach punch for priority, the rest for damage. Sometimes it functions as a fast offensive pivot after a slow Volt Switch or U-turn from M-Ampharos or Scizor.

best gril (Ampharos-Mega) (F) @ Ampharosite
Ability: Static
EVs: 248 HP / 252 SpA / 8 SpD
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Rest
- Sleep Talk
- Dragon Pulse
- Volt Switch
​

RestTalk lets me absorb status with this mon, which is really nice for a team so weak to pretty much all forms of status. This girl is quite bulky with just HP investment, especially since I can afford to bring her in on mainly resisted hits or status moves. Sometimes getting her in before she megas can be hard versus faster offensive teams though. She usually shines in the midgame, when I have (multiple) hazards out on the field. She scares away a lot of the tier's hazard control through her STAB combo and generally forces a switch everytime she shows her face, which is nice when I'm stacking hazards like dollars on payday.

sylvaneth (Chesnaught) (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Bulletproof
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD
Impish Nature
- Spikes
- Drain Punch
- Spiky Shield
- Leech Seed
​

Chesnaught serves as my mid/lategame physical tank. It supports the lack of recovery on a large part of my team nicely through Leech Seed, allowing me to switch out a lot safer and increasing the general longevity of my team. Because it stays healthy quite easily it can set up spikes multiple times if needed. I try to keep Drain Punch a secret for as long as possible against teams that have Swampert or Seismitoad so I can bluff to force the switch and set up a free spike or seed, depending on what the team needs. EVs are pretty standard, although I've thought of moving the last 8 to attack for that juicy 1 extra HP from Drain Punch.

my liver (Muk-Alola) (M) @ Assault Vest
Ability: Poison Touch
EVs: 248 HP / 164 Atk / 96 SpD
Careful Nature
- Knock Off
- Pursuit
- Poison Jab
- Shadow Sneak
​

This is my special tank that answers the swarm of Latias and M-Manectric currently in the tier. It comes in on some move, then clicks Pursuit or Knock Off. Simple enough. It combines with Chesnaught nicely, especially because of Leech Seed. I'm sure I put the EVs like this for a reason, but I forget what that was.

pink stinker (Swampert) (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Damp
EVs: 240 HP / 252 Def / 16 SpD
Relaxed Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Scald
- Roar
​

I usually use Swampert as an early game physical tank, often leading off my team and getting up rocks ASAP. Since I have both Alolan Muk and Scizor on the team, grass moves are hardly ever scary to me. M-Ampharos can also work as a more agressive switch on an expected grass move, also tanking status because of RestTalk. EVs are to give it 401 HP. I put the rest in defensive stats because I can.

Conclusion​

So yeah, that about wraps up how my team functions. Let me know what you think/suggest. I have a feeling my EVs could use some work here and there. Of course, suggestions for other mons or other sets/moves on my mons is well appreciated. As for final notes, I've noticed that the team's lackluster speed can hurt it if I fall behind against a faster momentum oriented team. It's also pretty bad if Scizor ends up tanking a lot of hits for the team, as it usually means hazards stay up, which is not great with how reliant this team is on switching around.

Importable

trapinch puppets (Scizor) @ Leftovers
Ability: Technician
EVs: 248 HP / 36 Def / 224 SpD
Impish Nature
- Defog
- Bullet Punch
- U-turn
- Roost

moba monkey (Infernape) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Iron Fist
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Flare Blitz
- Close Combat
- Mach Punch
- U-turn

best gril (Ampharos-Mega) (F) @ Ampharosite
Ability: Static
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 248 HP / 252 SpA / 8 SpD
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Rest
- Sleep Talk
- Dragon Pulse
- Volt Switch

sylvaneth (Chesnaught) (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Bulletproof
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD
Impish Nature
- Spikes
- Drain Punch
- Spiky Shield
- Leech Seed

my liver (Muk-Alola) (M) @ Assault Vest
Ability: Poison Touch
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 248 HP / 164 Atk / 96 SpD
Careful Nature
- Knock Off
- Pursuit
- Poison Jab
- Shadow Sneak

pink stinker (Swampert) (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Damp
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 240 HP / 252 Def / 16 SpD
Relaxed Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Scald
- Roar

 

[DiscoDucky]

Your team has a big problem with stall since nothing on your team actually breaks it. I would recommend dropping AloMuk and Chesnaught. Neither of them really help your team in any way really. Furthermore, your team doesn't really benefit from Spikes in any way. I personally also think that RestTalk is not optimizing M-Amph's actual potential. Running 252 HP / 252 SpAtk Modest allows it to act as some pivot / bulky Attacker that can directly help your team, especially with Volt Switch.

The first couple of things I see right now that needs coverage is Dragons and Hazard weakness, especially since I assume that M-Amph would be pivoting in and out quite frequently. Thus, I would recommend Defog Empoleon over Swampert. Although you stack Ground weaknesses, Empoleon can take a lot of hits that would normally be super-effective against Mega Ampharos. You could also run Shuca Berry to help your team's match-up against Mamoswine (which IMO is really, really bad). Alternatively, you could run your Defog Scizor to overall ease your match-ups against Mamoswine.

Defog Empoleon

Empoleon @ Leftovers / Shuca Berry
Trait: Torrent
EVs: 252 HP / 80 Def / 176 SpDef
Calm Nature
- Scald
- Defog
- Roar / Toxic
- Knock Off / Protect

Your team currently also is pretty weak to Scizor and Mega Venusaur. I would recommend NP Togekiss with Babiri Berry as a check both of them. Togekiss is a pretty good wallbreaker with Nasty Plot and can kill Scizor by luring it in and reducing Bullet Punch's damage with Babiri Berry. Air Slash also allows you to beat Mega Venusaur. It also gives you a Ground immunity and a Fighting resist for both Empoleon and Ampharos. Replace this over Chesnaught. You can also opt for

Nasty Plot Togekiss

Togekiss @ Babiri Berry
Trait: Serene Grace
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpAtk / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Nasty Plot
- Flamethrower / Fire Blast
- Air Slash
- Roost

At this point, [Ampharos / Empoleon / Togekiss] suffers hard from Volt Turn, specifically Scizor and Mega Manectric. I would personally opt to use Hippowdon since it has pretty nice synergy overall with it and stops Volt Switch. It also provides your team with Stealth Rock, which is important for any team. It also allows you to better deal with Mega Aerodactyl, Cobalion, and other physical attackers. The Hippowdon set is the standard set in the analysis, so look for the copy-paste there.

I think Scarfed Infernape is fine and has some nice Volt-Turn synergy with Mega Ampharos. However, I would highly recommend running Gunk Shot over Mach Punch. Mach Punch isn't good with Scarf Infernape for two reasons. First, it's really weak since it's coming off of a Base 104 Attack. Second, Scarfed Ape is fast enough to the point where it can revenge most of the stuff it needs to without Mach Punch. In fact, the only thing that's outspeeds it in this metagame is Scarf Latias, and Mach Punch does peanuts to it. Gunk Shot should be used as a way to deal with Pokemon such as Dragon Dance Altaria or Togekiss.

At this point, I realized (read: forgot) that Mamoswine was in UU, and most, if not this entire team, gets bodied by Mamoswine. Furthermore, stuff like Suicune also hurts your team. My best suggestion at this point would be Nasty Plot Celebi. Celebi threatens Suicune and Mamoswine. It also gives you a good fast sweeper and a secondary check to Mega Venusaur, which is pretty nice. In terms of its match-up against Mamoswine, Celebi can sustain repeated Ice Shards with its natural bulk and Giga Drain. Either Psychic or Psyshock could work. The latter will help with your match-up against AloBliss stall.

Nasty Plot Celebi

Celebi @ Groundium Z
Trait: Natural Cure
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpAtk / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Nasty Plot
- Giga Drain
- Psychic / Psyshock
- Earth Power

If you reading this right now, it means that I also have some afterthought improvements that your team could use. You could also run Choice Band Scizor with Crobat as an alternative to Empoleon and Togekiss. The only reason I would suggest Crobat is that Togekiss and Celebi's shared weakness to Poison makes dealing with Venusaur a bit harder. Defog and a Ground immunity gives you more chances to get a Defog off. Choice Band Scizor improves your Mamoswine match-up immensely by directly threatening it with an OHKO with Bullet Punch. However, this worsens your match-up against Flying-type attacks in this tier, so choice here is important.

Hope you found this useful. More importantly, you should also get involved with some other activities in the UU subforums to better understand some of the points I brought up in your RMT. Having me fix your team won't help if you don't know why I chose to fix it in that way.

 

[Uncle Tonkle]

First off, thank you for sharing your ideas. It was nice to see you dissect the team and rebuild it from scratch with your thought process next to it. That said, I do have a couple questions. Overall I agree with you in a broad sense. I've fought some stall teams and they were pretty annoying to face. They definitely win against this team, so I agree I need to change something up in order to properly beat it. I'm also glad Suicune is a bit uncommon now, since it indeed has beat me down pretty much every time I've faced it. There are, however, several things I would like to bounce some ideas back and forth on.

The first couple of things I see right now that needs coverage is Dragons

Since Scizor is so bulky, it also deals with the dragons you mentioned (unless they predict with a fire move). Usually I use A-Muk as a switch-in though, because it's safer. It eats dracos without much of a problem. Here's some calcs:
252 SpA Latias Draco Meteor vs. 248 HP / 96+ SpD Assault Vest Muk-Alola: 105-124 (25.4 - 30%) -- guaranteed 4HKO
252 SpA Hydreigon Draco Meteor vs. 248 HP / 96+ SpD Assault Vest Muk-Alola: 114-135 (27.6 - 32.6%) -- guaranteed 4HKO

Having Togekiss could be helpful for taking Dracos as well, granting me with a ground immunity as well and possibly packing Defog. I was thinking, if I use that, to switch my Scizor's Defog and turn him into SD Scizor to give me another potential wincon, as well as give me some more tools vs stall. In that case I think I'd rather replace A-Muk than Chesnaught though, since the tiny spike has won me too many games to just give up on the guy and the gameplans for A-Muk and Togekiss would overlap otherwise. I'm worried about missing Pursuit and Knock Off though. Especially Pursuit is great against Volt Switch mons, which otherwise annoy me.

I personally also think that RestTalk is not optimizing M-Amph's actual potential. Running 252 HP / 252 SpAtk Modest allows it to act as some pivot / bulky Attacker that can directly help your team, especially with Volt Switch.

I respectfully disagree on this point. RestTalk Amph can switch in more often without getting worn down too much and wins the war of attrition vs M-Venu. Here are the calcs:
0 SpA Venusaur-Mega Sludge Bomb vs. 248 HP / 8 SpD Ampharos-Mega: 106-126 (27.6 - 32.8%) -- guaranteed 4HKO
252+ SpA Mold Breaker Ampharos-Mega Dragon Pulse vs. 248 HP / 156+ SpD Venusaur-Mega: 126-148 (34.7 - 40.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

Of course, it's not nearly an optimal Venusaur counter, but it does its job together with an occasional Chesnaught switch. Chesnaught vs M-Venu is also decent (but not great), as it helps me get up a spike. It negates Sludge Bomb with Bulletproof, so here's the HP Fire calc now that I'm in the calcing mood:
0 SpA Venusaur-Mega Hidden Power Fire vs. 248 HP / 8 SpD Chesnaught: 130-154 (34.3 - 40.6%) -- 48.3% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

If I want it to effectively stall Venu out I can get Synthesis over Leech Seed, but I'm not sure if it's worth it, as Leech Seed is good for the team. It seems like a choice between recovery for the team so I can switch out safer, or recovery for Ches himself. Maybe you have some thoughts on the matter? I'm pretty ready for a simple "don't use Chesnaught" and I realize I'm being stubborn, but the work he's done for me can't be denied and I just can't get it over my heart to bench him.

I've also been thinking about Empoleon over Swampert and looking back at the games I've played, Swampert has definitely been a weaker link that mainly gets up rocks, then sits around as a sac. Only sometimes can he roar on a switch in or something, which I can do with Empoleon as well. It also helps with the Suicune matchup, since it resists Scald. I'm thinking Shuca Berry Empoleon is strictly better and will replace Swampert on the team. Thanks for the suggestion! It is true that that means I'm extra weak to Volt Switch now. In my head I'm debating if it makes that much of a difference for the team though. Right now, my answer is typically to switch in M-Amph against a Volt Switch to deter the pesky mons that typically get rid of hazards. It takes pretty much nothing from the double resisted move anyways and makes the opponent switch around into my hazards. Which brings me to that point. You stated:

your team doesn't really benefit from Spikes in any way.

That's typically what it does. It stops VoltTurn teams from freely going around doing their own thing. Typically what happens is that my opponent slowly gets worn down by my rocks and spikes trying to get a favorable matchup, which (if I don't get outpredicted) opens the door for a CC or Flare Blitz sweep from Infernape late-game. Speaking of Ape, I switched Mach Punch to Gunk Shot like you said. I barely used it anyways, just slapped it on there for the niche situations where I have to finish off a Scizor before it BPs me dead. Gunk Shot is just more broadly applicable I feel.

As for Mamo, in the past I usually replied by saccing Swampert then switching in Ape. If Chesnaught is full he can come in and Drain Punch it. Here's the calcs for the matchup:
252+ Atk Life Orb Mamoswine Earthquake vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Chesnaught: 73-86 (19.2 - 22.6%) -- possible 6HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ Atk Life Orb Mamoswine Icicle Crash vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Chesnaught: 250-296 (65.9 - 78.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
0 Atk Chesnaught Drain Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Mamoswine: 206-246 (57 - 68.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO (27.1 - 32.4% recovered)
Chesnaught can effectively deal with Mamo in this way because of Leftovers and Spiky Shield. It's not great and it doesn't come in unless I'm absolutely positive he'll do EQ, but it's something. Having Empoleon can ensure that EQ comes, which also helps the matchup here.


Overall, I realize I've dismissed most of your advice, but please don't take that as though I disrespect your view! It was very helpful to reconsider what my team loses to and how I can circumvent that. I've taken the mons you suggested in consideration, but am afraid to change my team up too much since it's performed pretty well for me in general. What I took moreso than just flat out copy/pasting the mons you suggested is the idea behind them and I think the few changes that I made are steps in the right direction for that. Mamo will still be an issue, M-Venu will still annoy me, but right now my matchup against those is at least a little bit better than it was and that's nice. Besides, every team is bound to have issues with some mons and it's not like they're completely unwinnable matchups for me. It sucks that M-Venu is on pretty much every team now, but M-Amph can beat it, so I'm not too afraid. This is the team I ended up with now:

Final team

best gril (Ampharos-Mega) (F) @ Ampharosite
Ability: Static
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 248 HP / 252 SpA / 8 SpD
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Rest
- Sleep Talk
- Dragon Pulse
- Volt Switch

mr boss man (Empoleon) @ Shuca Berry
Ability: Torrent
EVs: 252 HP / 80 Def / 176 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Scald
- Defog
- Stealth Rock
- Roar

my liver (Muk-Alola) (M) @ Assault Vest
Ability: Poison Touch
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 248 HP / 164 Atk / 96 SpD
Careful Nature
- Knock Off
- Pursuit
- Poison Jab
- Shadow Sneak

trapinch puppets (Scizor) @ Leftovers
Ability: Technician
EVs: 248 HP / 124 Def / 136 SpD
Impish Nature
- Swords Dance
- Bullet Punch
- U-turn
- Roost

moba monkey (Infernape) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Iron Fist
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Flare Blitz
- Close Combat
- Gunk Shot
- U-turn

sylvaneth (Chesnaught) (M) @ Leftovers/Rocky Helmet
Ability: Bulletproof
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD
Impish Nature
- Spikes
- Drain Punch
- Spiky Shield
- Leech Seed/Synthesis

I'd love to hear more of your thoughts if you can be bothered!


Edit: Played some and holy moly do I miss the fire resist. Opposing Infernape and A-Marowak has destroyed me so far. Yikes.