SS OU Magearna/Cinderace VoltTurn- Top 100!

[pulsar512b]

Hello!

This is a RMT of a team I made somewhat recently that I was able to pilot to my first ever top 500 in OU (I had gotten top 500 in a couple other metas, but never in the most prestigious tier). While the team isn’t the most new or exciting or imaginative, it works and is quite fun to play.

There are two versions of this team, the original version, and a revised version that features the last 2 pokemon being swapped. Both will be explained and shown.

Before I get going, here are the importables for both in pokepastes:
Original: https://pokepast.es/31a0c7c448907ea9
Revised: https://pokepast.es/a28494ba0c380e93

Teambuilding Process:

I started with a standard offensive pivot HDB Cinderace, as I wanted to play with this fantastic offensive threat.



Cinderace really appreciates future sight support to help versus Toxapex. Thus, I decided on Slowbro (one of my favorite pokemon in the current meta), which provides fantastic Future Sight support in addition to the ever-useful move Teleport.



I then decided that Specs Magearna would be a good 3rd pokemon, as it provides absolutely ridiculous breaking power (sometimes just taking a kill every time it swaps in) and appreciates Future Sight to break Toxapex.



At the same time, I decided to add Blissey for the additional pivoting support. It also works fantastic with Slowbro- Blissey deals with the special attackers while Slowbro deals with the physical side (reminiscent of SkarmBliss).



At this point, I realized I was missing a rocker and defogger, so I promptly added a bulky Tornadus-Therian and a SD/SR/EQ/Edge Garchomp. Torn-T helped deal with Rillaboom, which was currently difficult to deal with defensively.



At this point, I was pretty happy and went off to play some games. I was able to improve on my modest elo in the 1400s to a solid spot in the 1600s. I wanted to push for the top 500, and realized that this team had multiple problems. For instance, it had no form of speed control and sometimes struggled against Magearna and Spectrier. I decided to swap around Garchomp and Tornadus-T for a scarfed Lando-T and Ferrothorn. Ferro helps check Rillaboom while also setting rocks up, and Lando provides some much-needed speed control. These last 2 remain the pokemon I'm most unsure about




I went ahead and got top 500 (and then some!) with this team.

EDIT: Post-Spectrier ban I pushed a little more.

While this team is clearly nowhere near perfect, I’m pretty happy with the revised version. I really like how it has sufficient longevity in Blissey and Slowbro to be able to play long games, but also more than sufficient offense to break through defensive cores.

Detailed Team Explanation:

The first 4 pokemon are the same on both versions of the team.



Cinderace @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Libero
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Pyro Ball
- U-turn
- High Jump Kick
- Sucker Punch

This is a fairly standard offensive pivoting cinderace. Not too much to explain here. I chose to not have Gunk Shot because Fini is more than adequately covered by the team and in fact presents a perfect opportunity for Magearna to come in and start wrecking everything. I decided against Zen Headbutt as Slowbro’s Future Sight helps more than adequately against Toxapex and Sucker Punch’s priority helps massively against the omni-present (and hopefully soon banned) threat that is Spectrier among other speedsters like Dragapult.



Slowbro @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Scald
- Slack Off
- Future Sight
- Teleport

Again, fairly standard. I saw no reason to deviate from the norm here. The most important move to pay attention to is Future Sight, which helps Cinderace and Magearna deal with Toxapex. It can put the opponent into situations where something has to die (or take a lot of damage) since Toxapex doesn’t want to swap into a Pyro Ball or Fleur Cannon due to Future Sight. Teleport’s pivoting capabilities work well with future sight and the generally very pivot-heavy nature of the team. It’s purpose is to take physical hits and dispense Future Sights all over the place. The 0 speed IVs are to have the slowest possible Teleport.

0 SpA Slowbro Future Sight vs. 252 HP / 112 SpD Toxapex: 176-210 (57.8 - 69%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
0 SpA Slowbro Future Sight vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Toxapex: 192-228 (63.1 - 75%) -- guaranteed 2HKO



Magearna @ Choice Specs
Ability: Soul-Heart
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Fleur Cannon
- Volt Switch
- Flash Cannon
- Trick

This monster destroys everything it touches. Again, fairly standard and self-explanatory set. Trick cripples many walls such as Blissey and Toxapex, making them effectively useless for the rest of the game. Fleur Cannon combined with Future Sight is a truly fearsome attack, being able to beat Toxapex (assuming it isn’t fully specially defensive, when it barely lives without stealth rock damage)
252+ SpA Choice Specs Magearna Fleur Cannon vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Toxapex: 98-116 (32.2 - 38.1%) -- 96.2% chance to 3HKO
252+ SpA Choice Specs Magearna Fleur Cannon vs. 252 HP / 112 SpD Toxapex: 118-140 (38.8 - 46%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252+ SpA Choice Specs Magearna Fleur Cannon vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Toxapex: 129-152 (42.4 - 50%) -- 0.4% chance to 2HKO

Volt Switch is also surprisingly powerful and gives huge momentum.



Blissey @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
BoldNature
IVs: 30 Spe
- Seismic Toss/Shadow Ball
- Soft-Boiled
- Toxic
- Teleport

Fairly standard Blissey set. Shadow Ball is an option over Seismic Toss to help deal with Spectrier. I run Seismic Toss instead since I find that to be more useful against most teams, and also because Spectrier is getting yeeted in like a day or two lol. Toxic is chosen over Thunder Wave since there’s not really a need to slow down most pokemon. I decided against putting Stealth Rock on here since it would require removing Seismic Toss, Toxic, or Teleport. 30 Speed IVs are to ensure that it underspeeds other Blisseys while still outspeeding e.g. Ferrothorn.

At this point the two versions split. I will talk about the original version first.

Original:



Tornadus-Therian @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Hurricane
- Knock Off
- U-turn
- Defog

This is a standard pivot set on Torn-T. There really isn’t much to say here again, except that it serves as a solid Rillaboom answer. Before this, the team had some pseudoanswers (Cinderace and Magearna) but no proper answer. A defogger was needed as well and it felt natural to use Torn-T. U-Turn and Knock Off were chosen over e.g. Heat Wave since U-Turn keeps up momentum and Knock Off is very useful to get rid of items. Heat Wave is also kind of pointless when you consider that the rest of the team can deal with it’s targets more than adequately.



Garchomp @ Life Orb
Ability: Rough Skin
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge
- Stealth Rock

I frankly forget why I chose this set. It helps versus Moltres, which is not a huge concern for this team but it’s fairly helpful. EdgeQuake is fantastic coverage as always Other than that, I needed a rocker, and Garchomp is definitely a solid rocker. The rest is fairly standard. You can probably swap Stone Edge for Scale Shot if you want a more sweeping-oriented set. Might be better. Life Orb is of course for the additional power, but it limits its longevity. Leftovers is a potential secondary option for that. Frankly, however, I think this version of the team kinda just sucks.

Revised:



Landorus-Therian @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 Atk / 12 Def / 244 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Earthquake
- U-turn
- Stone Edge
- Defog

I feel like I’ve typed this a dozen times - this is just a standard set. Lando-T’s role compression is much appreciated here, as it can be a defogger and a scarfer. It’s worth noting that it seems I click defog quite rarely, and it might be an interesting idea to swap out Defog for Explosion as a surprise. U-Turn is of course useful for pivoting. The EVs are standard, once again. Looks like they're meant to outspeed +2 Modest Magearna, which does seem like a relevant calc. Intimidate is also surprisingly useful to help against physical attackers like Azumarill and Cinderace.




Ferrothorn @ Leftovers
Ability: Iron Barbs
EVs: 252 HP / 80 Def / 176 SpD
Careful Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Knock Off
- Leech Seed
- Power Whip

Blah blah, standard set, you know the bloody drill. EVs are standard, apparently they mean it can live a specs focus blast from magearna. Fully physically defensive may be a better choice to beat Azumarill, but that means that it deals with specially offensive mons less. Leech seed is of course the natural choice. Knock Off is hugely helpful against a lot of mons that abuse HDB such as Cinderace, Volcarona, Moltres, and Slowbro or Leftovers/Black Sludge/Rocky Helmet (such as Toxapex, Ferrothorn and Slowbro again)

Threats

Azumarill: Belly drum and it 6-0s. However, with some chip while setting up, ferrothorn’s iron barbs, and Cinderace’s sucker punch, it’s manageable (see the replays section for an example)

Cinderace: Sort of annoying, as U-Turn on Slowbro is doing some damage, but should be manageable.

Magearna: Specs/Scarf are wallable, but you have to watch out for Trick. Overall, very manageable. However, shift gear shows up and it kind of just busts open this team. Luckily, Cinderace (barely!) lives a Stored Power from a Magearna that’s set up Shift Gear and Calm Mind if it doesn’t run life orb: +1 252 SpA Magearna Stored Power (120 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Cinderace: 249-293 (82.7 - 97.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO. Again, the replays section has examples of ways to bypass this weakness/

Spectrier: The most annoying out of these weaknesses. Choiced sets are entirely countered by Blissey, but some sub sets can beat it. To help with this weakness, you could run shadow ball on Blissey, but I prefer Seismic Toss since I feel like it’ll be more useful in general (plus the horsey’s getting banned before you’re seeing this RMT, more likely than not). You can also play some Sucker Punch/Pyro Ball mindgames with Spectrier. Again, for examples of how to deal with this, see the replays.

HO: Screens Mag destroys. Add to this they sometimes use Azumarill and/or Spectrier…. Not unbeatable, but difficult- stop screens if at all possible. Again, replays.

Heatran: Mildly annoying without Garchomp (and still annoying with) as it can beat Slowbro/Blissey with taunt/magma storm. However, this means that it’s low enough to be not of much use. In addition, I have 4 other pokemon that it has to deal with, and it’s often not worth it for the opponent.

Crawdaunt: Mildly annoying, but Ferro helps as does Landorus-T’s intimidate. Magearna may also be able to take some hits.

Replays

Revised version:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1276936624-265qd44maksbhmedmsk84balovkohmvpw HO team with Magearna and Azumarill handled - also shows peak
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1276797366-9sj1bpykwuga522vvacrgefk2xi9asxpw HO team with screens, magearna, and spectrier (and a Cinderace but it wasn’t really a problem)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1276131408-mro2bl53tqrixqlrqrqpvac4r2kfpuspw solid game against a bulkier team
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1276797366-9sj1bpykwuga522vvacrgefk2xi9asxpw another screens HO with spectrier and magearna
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1275562124 futue sight the game (versus a very bulky team)

Original:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1271671403-3hmifrq75es2gpbp254pkpt2aplhvolpw A showcase of the team’s defensive abilities
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1274969144-079ovw7xgx2isgzacehqrx6tz1hro57pw another very long game that went my way

Unfortunately, I don’t have more replays of the original team. It was kinda trash, and it was hard to find good replays considering I only used it for a shortish time.

 

[Azure]

Hey, just finished reading over this. I really like the foundation of your team, the offensive core of 4 attacks cind, specs mage and FS bro is a really strong start. Grats on your first top 500 as well

I made a few changes that I think would be worth trying out, based on the problems you listed, and a few things I observed on my own.

--->

You mentioned having troubles with Crawdaunt and Rillaboom, and I think this helps patch that up a bit. The standard Mandibuzz spread outpaces Adamant Crawdaunt, and can choose to U-turn or Foul Play it. Having Mandibuzz here also gives you a pretty reliable Aegislash switchin, preventing mixed sets from punching too many holes in your team. It's also pretty useful to have against dragon dance Dragapult, which has seen some more use again as of late

--->

Helmet Garchomp provides an alternate Crawdaunt answer, as it also outspeeds and threatens massive damage from earthquake combined with helmet/rough skin damage, and another switchin to Heatran. I find having another Heatran switchin to be particularly beneficial to your team, because I noticed that sd scale shot Garchomp could be pretty threatening to your build. Having a secondary Heatran switchin can open up Slowbro to run Ice beam, an unexpected option that can really punish sd Chomp hard, and prevent it from sweeping a lot more reliably. It also conveniently adds another Cinderace countermeasure, in case it overwhelms Slowbro.

Having two new defensive pokemon would make your team a bit more balance-oriented, but I think that compliments the inclusion of Blissey on this team. I was originally looking for a way to remove Blissey to make this team more offensively inclined, but I noticed that it just opens up way too many holes to things like Nidoking, specs Magearna, Dragapult, Volcarona, and miscellaneous other special attackers. So I decided to just double down in a more balance oriented direction.

I also changed Toxic to Thunder Wave on Blissey, because I think it helps you out considerably against draining kiss/pain split Magearnas which are easily able to 1v1 toxic Blissey. The combination of teleport Blissey + Cinderace should suffice against breakers like NP Hydreigon. Garchomp can also get a toxic off on roost Volcarona for Blissey, preventing it from winning.

New Threats:

Tapu Lele was already a threat to the original build, just being generally hard to safely switch into thanks to its fighting/fairy/psychic coverage, and having wallbreaking opportunities against pokemon like Slowbro and Blissey. With the removal of your defensive steel, and an added weakness in Mandibuzz, it's a little more annoying, but I think a well played Magearna and Cinderace can at least stop you from outright losing to it.

Nasty Plot Tornadus-Therian is very scary here. If it's taunt, there's a good chance it's lacking heat wave or focus blast, which you can use to choose your response. If it doesn't have taunt, Blissey can Twave it and cripple it severely, additionally allowing Cinderace and Magearna to outspeed it. Be careful not to give it safe setup chances, try your best to keep it out

I can see Dracozolt sand being particularly scary if it gets the chance to come in. Be very aggressive with Magearna in this matchup, try to punch as many holes as quickly as possible and avoid playing passively, so you can at least try to box the Dracozolt in before it can do significant damage to your team.

Importable



Hope this helped give you some ideas

 

[pulsar512b]

Hey, just finished reading over this. I really like the foundation of your team, the offensive core of 4 attacks cind, specs mage and FS bro is a really strong start. Grats on your first top 500 as well

I made a few changes that I think would be worth trying out, based on the problems you listed, and a few things I observed on my own.

--->

You mentioned having troubles with Crawdaunt and Rillaboom, and I think this helps patch that up a bit. The standard Mandibuzz spread outpaces Adamant Crawdaunt, and can choose to U-turn or Foul Play it. Having Mandibuzz here also gives you a pretty reliable Aegislash switchin, preventing mixed sets from punching too many holes in your team. It's also pretty useful to have against dragon dance Dragapult, which has seen some more use again as of late

--->

Helmet Garchomp provides an alternate Crawdaunt answer, as it also outspeeds and threatens massive damage from earthquake combined with helmet/rough skin damage, and another switchin to Heatran. I find having another Heatran switchin to be particularly beneficial to your team, because I noticed that sd scale shot Garchomp could be pretty threatening to your build. Having a secondary Heatran switchin can open up Slowbro to run Ice beam, an unexpected option that can really punish sd Chomp hard, and prevent it from sweeping a lot more reliably. It also conveniently adds another Cinderace countermeasure, in case it overwhelms Slowbro.

Having two new defensive pokemon would make your team a bit more balance-oriented, but I think that compliments the inclusion of Blissey on this team. I was originally looking for a way to remove Blissey to make this team more offensively inclined, but I noticed that it just opens up way too many holes to things like Nidoking, specs Magearna, Dragapult, Volcarona, and miscellaneous other special attackers. So I decided to just double down in a more balance oriented direction.

I also changed Toxic to Thunder Wave on Blissey, because I think it helps you out considerably against draining kiss/pain split Magearnas which are easily able to 1v1 toxic Blissey. The combination of teleport Blissey + Cinderace should suffice against breakers like NP Hydreigon. Garchomp can also get a toxic off on roost Volcarona for Blissey, preventing it from winning.

New Threats:

Tapu Lele was already a threat to the original build, just being generally hard to safely switch into thanks to its fighting/fairy/psychic coverage, and having wallbreaking opportunities against pokemon like Slowbro and Blissey. With the removal of your defensive steel, and an added weakness in Mandibuzz, it's a little more annoying, but I think a well played Magearna and Cinderace can at least stop you from outright losing to it.

Nasty Plot Tornadus-Therian is very scary here. If it's taunt, there's a good chance it's lacking heat wave or focus blast, which you can use to choose your response. If it doesn't have taunt, Blissey can Twave it and cripple it severely, additionally allowing Cinderace and Magearna to outspeed it. Be careful not to give it safe setup chances, try your best to keep it out

I can see Dracozolt sand being particularly scary if it gets the chance to come in. Be very aggressive with Magearna in this matchup, try to punch as many holes as quickly as possible and avoid playing passively, so you can at least try to box the Dracozolt in before it can do significant damage to your team.

Importable



Hope this helped give you some ideas

I knew I forgot to mention some weaknesses (Lele and Dracozolt). I didn't realize that Nasty Plot Torn-T was a problem.

Replacing Lando with Mandibuzz and Ferrothorn with a bulky Garchomp does make sense, but I'm a bit worried about the team's lack of offensive pressure and speed control. Thanks for the suggestions however!

In other news...

update to the update- top 100 (updated thread title)

Used my revised version (the one with Lando-T and Ferrothorn)

 

[JackPilotF2]

Momentum is really fire!

 

[pulsar512b]

bump
also noting that this team is outdated, and it's basically impossible to modify it into the new meta with the mag and ace bans.