SM OU Gliscor/Celesteela Stall

[Jermaya]

Introduction​

Getting back into pokemon battles after playing mostly in Gen V. I generally enjoy playing a slower style, drawing out matches. I previously enjoyed playing with both Gliscor and Breloom, but Breloom seems to have fallen out of the meta, and was delighted to see how well Celesteela worked with Gliscor. Often being able to swap in on lightning attacks. None of the pokemon on my team are all out sweepers, going for a 6-0, but simply wearing people down with SR, toxic and leech seed, with a couple bulky mons to finish up.

Teambuilding Process​

Hide

I always start by choosing a lead, as it generally defines the playstyle you're going for. I tried out a couple different leads, such as ferro and skarmory, but found both were not performing quite the same role as Jirachi. Trick allowed me to criple other ferros, self destruct azelf, baloon users with earthquake, and then allowing me to setup my own SR, then u-turning into a suitable wall.

Next up was Gliscor, a staple due to the ground/lightning immunity, allowing him to switch in on tapu koko with no hidden power ice, as well as earthquakes intended for jirachi safely. Protect is there to scout ice attacks, toxic to harass anyone attempting to set up on him, and earthquake for semi-reliable stab. On pokemon who cannot outspeed him, he can protect/sub indefinitely while waiting for toxic to do it's job.

Next up was celesteela, with high defense, being able to switch in on earthquakes intended for jirachi for free, as well as being able to set up leech seed to continue chipping away at someone trying to setup on him.

Was trying to find a mega who fit in fairly well with everyone else, and realized I needed some physical power, with ice fang countering dragons/flying good stab in crunch with potential for def reduction. Earthquake ended up slotting well, as a good check to heatran, magearna.

After filling the hole in physical damage it was immediately obvious there was no way of getting around physical walls, so in comes volcarona, slightly bulky with good speed and special, as well as phenomal typing to compliment the existing mons in my team.

Originally had zapdos here, but found the only option available to counter ice attacks was jirachi, and didn't have quite teh bulk necesary, so added in magearna, with immunities to poison,dragon and enough SpD that ice attacks do little more than annoy.

The Team​

Jirachi @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Serene Grace
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Iron Head
- Stealth Rock
- Trick
- U-turn
​

Jirachi is a quick lead with choice scarf, allowing it to either quickly u-turn, or drop choice scarf onto a SR setter, forcing the opponent to switch out, and getting my own rocks set up. Iron head of course for the flinching, which has occasionally closed out a close game with 2 or 3 flinches in a row. U-turn being important in case of the opponent being mSableye or someone else who can't be tricked.

Gliscor @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
EVs: 244 HP / 76 SpD / 188 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Earthquake
- Toxic
- Substitute
- Protect
​

Gliscor allows switches into lightning/ground attacks for free. This is valuable, allowing him to get up substitute, scout a move with protect/getting toxic on an opponent. After getting toxic on the enemy, the idea is to just stall them out with protect/sub until they switch out, allowing you to get toxic on a couple enemy mons. Biggest drawback here is a weakness to ice, which is incredibly common for hidden power. Thus relying on magearna.

Celesteela @ Leftovers
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 248 HP / 104 Def / 156 SpD
Relaxed Nature
- Leech Seed
- Protect
- Heavy Slam
- Flamethrower
​

Celesteela has been a good counterpoint to gliscor, many opponents opting to use lightning moves, allowing gliscor to switch in for free. On top of that, generally being able to set up leech seed, or getting a burn from flamethrower and stalling out a couple turns works well.

Gyarados-Mega @ Gyaradosite
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Crunch
- Ice Fang
- Earthquake
​

Needed some physical power to get around heatran, and landorus. Which is why I bring earthquake/ice fang respectively. Meant to break down special walls with heavy physical attacks, while being able to outspeed a lot of the OU tier unboosted, minus greninja, tapu koko, alakazam and company.

Volcarona @ Buginium Z
Ability: Flame Body
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Quiver Dance
- Fire Blast
- Bug Buzz
- Psychic
​

My teams special attacker, often never actually even take volcarona out, as SR destroys it, and mistakenly took our defog when I swapped out Zapdos. Usually try and pull volcarona out at the end, when it can outspeed most of the remaining team, or if no SR on my side, can bring it out to take out tapu lele or OHKO anything that volca can hit super effectively.

Magearna @ Assault Vest
Ability: Soul-Heart
EVs: 248 HP / 8 SpA / 252 SpD
Sassy Nature
- Fleur Cannon
- Iron Head
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Volt Switch
​

Originally had Zapdos slotted here, but quickly found I couldn't swap in anyone on ice attacks except Jirachi, but even at that, Jirachi generally had no answers to it. As it was usually Greninja, tapu koko HP ICE or landorus HP ICE. As such, Zapdos was out, and in came Magearna, with good resists, and being able to shrug off ice attacks, allowing for a volt switch after a switch from the opponent, often generates a decent amount of momentum.

Conclusion​

All suggestions welcome, and would prefer to keep in Jirachi, Celesteela and Gliscor, as they are what I tried to make my core and seem to work quite well together. As it stands, I am enjoying the team and paly style, however am finding Tapu Koko is a general nightmare, with gliscor and magearna being my only answers, and depending on tapu koko's HP typing, one of them would get OHKOd. I feel MGyra underwhelming at times, but generally comes in useful to threaten with ice fang on teams mostly running dragon/flying/grass, or sneaking in a dragon dance on a switch and just working the other team over. Volcarona seems... off so far, often getting destroyed by SR, and then getting OHKOd by something either faster, or bulky enough to take a hit. I likely should have swapped out volcarona when I took out zapdos, but couldn't decide on a different special attacker to swap in instead that felt right during testing, as such volca stayed. Magearna feels good, but fire often makes it sad, charizard often leaves me with only one option, switching out to something else, and celesteela cannot deal with the fire, nor can jirachi, leaving only volca, mgyra and gliscor. None of them are incredibly defensive. I want to make this work, and have had some success, going about 50-35 or so with it all in all. Generally the losses are brutal, being close to 6-1 or 6-2, and most my wins being on the closer side/rage quits after having no answers to gliscor/celesteela.

Importable

Jirachi @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Serene Grace
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Iron Head
- Stealth Rock
- Trick
- U-turn

Gliscor @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 244 HP / 76 SpD / 188 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Earthquake
- Toxic
- Substitute
- Protect

Celesteela @ Leftovers
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 248 HP / 104 Def / 156 SpD
Relaxed Nature
- Leech Seed
- Protect
- Heavy Slam
- Flamethrower

Gyarados-Mega @ Gyaradosite
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Crunch
- Ice Fang
- Earthquake

Volcarona @ Buginium Z
Ability: Flame Body
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Quiver Dance
- Fire Blast
- Bug Buzz
- Substitute

Magearna @ Assault Vest
Ability: Soul-Heart
EVs: 248 HP / 8 SpA / 252 SpD
Sassy Nature
- Fleur Cannon
- Iron Head
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Volt Switch

 

[DKM]

Hi, this is a pretty cool team. Although 3 steel types is usually too much. You also have 2 stealth rock weak pokemon with no hazard removal.




Gliscor @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
EVs: 244 HP / 76 SpD / 188 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Earthquake
- Toxic
- Defog
- Roost

Defog on Gliscor is pretty much needed if you have pokemon like Volcarona and Gyarados which are too weak to rocks to go without it.

Sub isn't really that good as Gliscor is going to get poisoned anyway.

Protect is cool for scouting, but I think reliable recovery is usually better so I'd suggest changing it to roost.




-->
Landorus-Therian (M) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- U-turn
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Hidden Power [Ice]

I know you want to keep Jirachi, and that's obviously fine. But I wanted to suggest this change anyway.

Scarf Landorus gives you a better switch-in to Koko and a better answer to DD Zygarde which seems to annoy the team.

It's bulkier against certain things thanks to intimidate and is still a solid stealth rocker.

I hope these suggestions are helpful :]
Importable: https://pokepast.es/851e54f4c015b1dd​