https://pokepast.es/5f6416364fc64fac
Ok, this is a new team I made.
This will be a sample submission. The whole premise is based around a Ogerpon-wellspring and mega lopunny balance core, using pivots such as the aforementioned mega lopunny, lando, and glowking to get in the main wincons; np tornt and Ogerpon. My building process was formed through a method where I put things that threaten the core on a piece of paper and added things that beat those checks, and then I added that mon’s checks as well to see if it synergized nicely. Turned out it didn’t exactly work as there was a prototype of this team, but it got to this point because of that method.
This is the main thing I built around. When I was looking for a mon to build, I wanted to use something that was good but wasn’t on the current samples; this thing was perfect. It’s still an amazing glue mon, being speed control and dealing with things like darkrai, Ogerpon, weavile, and even more fast threats and dealing huge damage to slower mons like Ferro, heatran, Garg, and kyurem (excluding Tera). Not only that, it’s a great pivot as well, bringing in waterpon on bulky waters like pex and Mola as well as grounds like Lando and Glisc.
This thing synergizes amazingly with mlop. First, though, let’s explain the set. It’s pretty standard, except we have taunt instead of the usual encore. This is to help completely shut down Mola using wish/toxic and to still help vs Rotomtryggles wash, as I felt I struggled enough against it. It also helps stop a tera’d glowking twave waterpon or pivot out. The rest is pretty standard, though. Now, why does it synergize so nicely with mlop? Well, look at the main things that beat Ogerpon; mons like Tapu koko and np tornt can take advantage of its good but still exploitable speed tier, but mlop deals with both of them. Not only that, Ogerpon can struggle against sd kart and Ferro as well as dangerously speed tying with opposing Ogerpon, and mlop deals with all of these. In return, since mlop struggles against bulky waters and grounds that I mentioned earlier, waterpon is the perfect teammate. Mlop also struggles with rain abusers like mswamp and barraskewda, so waterpon is here to beat those (not to mention waterpon can cleanly ohko defensive zap with Tera and +2, and 2hko with just 1 of those requirements.)
This isn’t to say the core is without flaws, however. You still can’t switch into ival, koko, or enam in any form with this core. Rilla grassy glide spamming you is also an issue. Enter glowking! It takes basically every fairy move directed at mlop, and gives the team an ival check. It’s also an important defensive piece, switching in on mons like pex and kyurem as well as being able to Regen stall garganacl of all things. With Tera steel, it also becomes a good lele check as well as giving it a lot more resists to mons like Mdia and np torn. Not only that, it provides amazing fsight support for a fighting mon like mlop, pressuring pex and Mola while also making zap and molt not so free switch ins anymore. In return, mlop deals with all the darks and the pursuit users that glowking hates, as well as beat steels like Ferro and heatran. Twave is a secondary form of speed control that helps out the wincons in Ogerpon and tornt blow past faster stuff. The ev spread is to take opposing mlop returns easier.
Even with Tera steel glowking, I saw that this team still had some things it couldn’t really beat under normal battle circumstances. I’m of course mainly referring to Tapu lele, but also stuff like Corv, Skarm, and msciz really stuffed what I had, so I put heatran. It is also a check to Zapdos which this team has very limited options against otherwise. Toxic is (I think?) not as common nowadays but it helps wear down a lot of stuff with Tera such as raging bolt and gouging fire (once again, with Tera) as well as Rotom wash, waterpon, and alomomola. Although this team doesn’t have Mola, which is a great partner for heatran, Tran is still able to do its job well with smart and careful play. Also gives a semi defensive answer to np torn.
speaking of, this mon is (and I will continue to say it) the best defogger imo. It can just do so much through the course of the game. It acts as a wincon mainly, blowing past many bulky offense/balance cores with ease, especially with team support in glowking/heatran. It also is a defogger like I mentioned, which helps with the spikes weakness this team has. All of the main checks that np torn has are all dealt with by glowking and heatran, and these checks include Tapu koko, iron valiant (under quark boost), Tapu lele, iron crown, and Zapdos.
this is my ground for the team. Before you get the pitchforks and try to kill me saying I should use Glisc, I didn’t really feel like Glisc fit on this pivot-centric team, as just slapping a Lando set on Glisc wouldn’t really work. Lando is my blanket check into Phys attackers like mmaw and mmedi as well as mlop, which all (except for mlop) destroy Glisc. Defensive glisc is also very passive, which Lando certainly isn’t. It also has Rocky helmet to chip tusk and opposing Lando, which is another advantage over Glisc. Rocks are a very useful asset to this team, as mlop appreciates the hazard support. Besides that, Lando does normal Lando things. Tera dragon is to help against waterpon while also helping against yard and Volc.
And that’s the team! One weakness I noticed while writing this post is against weavile: you need to play very, very carefully around it with heatran and mlop and not get farmed by pursuit which kills basically everything here except for Lando heatran and mlop (and Lando dies to taxel).
(I also want to give a shoutout to the NDOU chat for giving opinions on it as well as
RunicPower413 and
Dead by Daylight for helping me test/giving me motivation to even make the team lol.)