SS OU Help with Trick Room

[PROJECTcurse]

Tried my hand at a trick room team and it is straight garbodor. I thought I had an idea of what the problem was, but now I’m down to either Trick Room doesn’t work that well or more realistically, I don’t know what I’m doing. Explanations for each choice will be given and all feedback is appreciated.

Orbeetle @ Light Clay
Ability: Frisk
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Def / 252 SpD
Sassy Nature
- Light Screen
- Trick Room
- Reflect
- U-turn

Orbeetle seems like a solid setup choice, lotta utility, not sure if U-Turn being my only damage move is good. I feel like I might need to pick either Light Screen or Reflect and go for one more damaging move, plus I don’t love light clay as it makes it hard to switch even with Corviknight as a defogger.

Corviknight @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Mirror Armor
EVs: 252 HP / 168 Def / 88 SpD
Impish Nature
- Body Press
- Roost
- U-turn
- Defog

Originally I had a Dusclops with Eviolite as a secondary setter and Hatterene ran Calm Mind. I quickly realized that having no Defogger and nothing with HDB was a problem, so Corviknight is the result of that. Think I might swap to Lefties, but he plays well with Trick Room and I realized I just need to have a Defogger or put HDB on a lot of Pokémon.

Copperajah @ Assault Vest
Ability: Heavy Metal
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 SpD
Brave Nature
- Heavy Slam
- Heat Crash
- Earthquake
- Power Whip

Originally I had Leftovers, and very quickly realized why that was a bad idea. I’m realizing the issue with running slow Pokémon as my only threats (originally didn’t have the Urshifu), because while I had some great sweeps with Copperajah that ended as soon as TR went down and a fire type/fire check came around. Overall think he’s pretty solid within the comp but I have considered a Rhyperior instead which could still be a physical sweeper within a trick room, but a little less gimmicky.

Hatterene (F) @ Life Orb
Ability: Magic Bounce
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD
Modest Nature
- Mystical Fire
- Psyshock
- Draining Kiss
- Trick Room

Not sure I love Hatterene as my special sweeper. I’m considering a Slowking, but I’m still not sure that that changes much for me in the long run. I swapped to having Hatterene as a secondary setter which feels a lot riskier, but I think the benefits of removing Dusclops for a defogger outweigh the risks. I may also (more below) drop Blissey for the Dusclops, but I think I keep the Trick Room on Hatterene anyway.

Urshifu-Rapid-Strike @ Protective Pads
Ability: Unseen Fist
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Surging Strikes
- Close Combat
- Aqua Jet
- U-turn

Urshifu is in here solely because I realized I can’t have only slow sleepers and expect to win if they or my trick room setters go down. Might swap out to Cartana or a Buzzwole for alternates, but I threw Urshifu in there because I didn’t include him in my previous Rainy Day team and wanted to try slotting him in. This slot is definitely my least solidified, and I think any major changes made to the comp will include replacing Urshifu-R.

Blissey (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Def
Impish Nature
- Soft-Boiled
- Toxic
- Thunder Wave
- Seismic Toss

Again, not sure if I like Blissey. She’s a really good staller, and I do like having the Thunder Wave/Seismic Toss options, but beyond that I’m pretty unattached to her, and may even drop her to re-add Dusclops for a second dedicated Trick Room setter. Time will tell

 

[ScalchopFren]

So this team kinda falls into the trap that a lot of beginners tend to fall into when trying to make a TR team: it's just taking a bunch of relatively slow mons (and an Urshifu for some reason) and putting them together without much thought. If you wanna make a full TR team, you generally have to just go full send on the slow offense aside from a few bulky TR setters like Cresselia. Filling the team with sit-around defensive mons hinders any kind of progress you could make in TR, since all they do is waste your precious turns. This is why some people, myself included, think that dedicated TR teams are straight up bad in OU. Dedicated defensive mons and fast revenge killers are both off the table, so you're going to struggle quite heavily with some of the tier's biggest threats like Weavile, Urshifu, and especially Heatran.

Based on that, quite a lot of this would need changing to make it "viable" (as viable as TR can be). Urshifu, Corviknight, and Blissey all have to go, and Copperajah and Orbeetle are handily outclassed by Melmetal as a breaker and Cresselia as a TR setter respectively. Changing that much of a team is kind of against forum rules -- we're supposed to avoid replacing more than 3 members -- but I'll try my best to work with it.

Major changes

Full disclosure: several of these spreads are taken from Clone's TR team posted in the OU teambuilding lab a couple months ago. If you don't like what I give you at the end of this post, I would strongly suggest playing around with that team instead.

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Pory2 is a good fit for this team over your current Normal-type. Like Blissey, it avoids making this team crumple to Dragapult by providing a crucial Shadow Ball switchin and can Teleport around to generate momentum for you. Unlike Blissey, however, it also learns TR. That important difference means it can actually capitalize on walling Dragapult by resetting your turns.

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Honestly, I'm not sure how well this mon would work on TR, it's just an idea that I had. This retains a Fighting-type while also offering a blanket check to several physical threats in the tier, notably Weavile and Kartana. It's a decent answer to Urshifu as well, which is appreciated by literally every team in existence.

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TR doesn't tend to have time for dedicated hazard removal since it often wastes a turn of your TR, which you never really want. As such, I'm replacing Corv with one of the scariest TR mons in existence: Alolawak. Thick Club already makes this thing incredibly hard to switch around under TR, but the advent of Swords Dance boosts it to some absolutely obscene damage levels. I think this would benefit you a lot more than Corv would in the long run.

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The more I thought about Orbeetle, the more I realized that I could not justify using it in any capacity over Cresselia. Cress is bulkier and has access to Lunar Dance, meaning you can bring back weakened teammates in clutch moments if you need to. Nothing more really needs to be said; it's a TR staple for a reason.


Minor changes


The Raj is basically fine, actually. The only change I would make is to run Life Orb > Assault Vest just for that extra bit of power. Though again, it is still heavily outclassed by Melmetal, so I would realistically go with that instead.


Hatterene (F) @ Focus Sash
Ability: Magic Bounce
EVs: 252 HP / 80 Def / 176 SpA
Quiet Nature
- Trick Room
- Mystical Fire
- Misty Explosion
- Healing Wish
Another set stolen from Clone's team, this puts Hatterene in more of a dedicated lead role. The idea is simple: set up TR and die (via Misty Explosion). Or, alternatively, save it in the back for Magic Bounce and the potential Healing Wish. That's about it, really.

Team (click the sprites for an import)

Before anyone says anything: yes, I'm well aware that this is still pretty similar to Clone's team. Sadly that's just how TR works; the way the OU tier is, you really don't have much wiggle room with this playstyle. Honestly you're probably just better off using Clone's team to begin with.

The only potential modifications I can think of at the time of writing this are using SD Crawdaunt as a breaker, or Melmetal over Copperajah as I mentioned before. You can also experiment with Slowbro/king, preferably bro, as a TR setter that can ACTUALLY check Urshifu (and that has Regen+Teleport which is nice). Other than that, I don't have much to offer here.

 

[PROJECTcurse]

Team (click the sprites for an import)

Before anyone says anything: yes, I'm well aware that this is still pretty similar to Clone's team. Sadly that's just how TR works; the way the OU tier is, you really don't have much wiggle room with this playstyle. Honestly you're probably just better off using Clone's team to begin with.

The only potential modifications I can think of at the time of writing this are using SD Crawdaunt as a breaker, or Melmetal over Copperajah as I mentioned before. You can also experiment with Slowbro/king, preferably bro, as a TR setter that can ACTUALLY check Urshifu (and that has Regen+Teleport which is nice). Other than that, I don't have much to offer here.

Sadly, I kinda figured that without following most lists to the fullest I would struggle. Definitely gonna play around with Slowbro and Melmetal, but I may go with Clone’s full list. I think I yoinked their Icy-Hot list and I’ve enjoyed that so I‘ll give it a look