One of my favorite archetypes for the past few months has been trick room, and because I wanted to defend Carbink and Hattrem of all things in the VR thread, I thought I'd actually play a game or ten in the current meta with them. And then I felt like I'd make a post about trick room in general because I love trick room and don't post here as often as the VR thread. Keep in mind I mostly play ladder with this, but this should apply at higher levels too. Hopefully this is useful! (and if you don't read the post at least read the tl;dr) (also are courtesy spoilers a thing I should use?)
Trick Room: The Novel
1. The Setters.
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In my opinion, the first three are the trick room setters you should seriously consider, and the latter three are choices you can make if you really really want (I don't want). Spiritomb is a necessity on trick room, as it's the best OTR mon in the tier. Frankly, you could just run Spiritomb and a slow mon like Lurantis as a "trick room" team, and that would work. Spiritomb has the bulk to recklessly stay in on almost anything, live a hit and set trick room or NP, and fire back with serious damage. Whether you're going full trick room or not, the ability that Spiritomb has to turn a matchup like Stored Power Farigiraf on its head with Trick Room is powerful. Spiritomb is such a threat under trick room with its typing, stats, and NP, that it will almost always have something to do in a game. If the opponent stalls out trick room, they face the onslaught of Spiritomb, but if they kill it early they probably used their tera to get fairy coverage and you probably have another slow mon that can revenge that.
Now, if you are using full trick room, you do need at least one more setter. I've found that both Carbink and Hattrem are good in their own ways, but they are mons that you should not run together because they overlap heavily. Both mons are there to set trick room, maybe get hazards on the opponent's side with sr or mbounce respectively, and die. Carbink puts the hazards in your hands, meaning your opponent needs to have a decent anti-lead if they want to stop trick room and hazards from going up. Mental herb, in combination with Sturdy, guarantees hazards or trick room, but Sitrus berry is another option on Carbink. In my experience, you're more likely to take 50-60% from a hit on Carbink than face a lead running Taunt on ladder, which is why I'm recommending it. On the other hand you have Hattrem, who has Eviolite, Mbounce, and healing wish. Especially on an offensive archetype like Trick Room, healing wish is very nice to have. It allows you to not only get a safe switch from Hattrem dying, but once you recklessly switch your Crabominable into something you didn't want to, Hwish gives you a chance to bring that back up to full and heal that burn your took for some reason. Magic bounce also provides hazard control by virtue of existing. Both Carbink and Hattrem have their pros and cons, and with the rest of your team you can justify either. The compression of hazards or hazard control means they both add value to trick room outside of setting either way, but mons like Rhydon and Lurantis can help fill those niches theoretically. Ultimately, I feel that Carbink is a little better, since I think Lurantis is worth using more than Rhydon in trick room.
The rest of the setters I mentioned aren't really worth using. I have tried both Farigiraf and Rabsca, and I've found Spiritomb and Hattrem to outclass each respectively. Spiritomb does the OTR thing better than Farigiraf due to its bulk and better typing. While the Revival Blessing support looks good on paper with Rabsca, you're probably better with healing wish Hattrem since it fully heals
and gives a free switch. Finally, I put Indeedee on here not because anyone actually used it, but because it technically gets the same TR + hwish combo as Hattrem. I don't think anyone's tried it, and even though it's probably outclassed by Farigiraf I thought I'd mention it in case it pops off next meta.
2. The Abusers.
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I split these into four sections. The first two are almost mandatory or the best/most obvious options, the second group is grass, the third are not first choices for full trick room but good users of it, and the fourth category mons are choices you can make.
Of the first two, Crabominable is the first mon I think of when thinking about running a full trick room. It's fairly bulky, has a great offensive movepool with Boltbeam coverage, iron fist boosted drain punch and ice hammer, and earthquake. I think that it's best 4 moves are Ice Hammer/Drain Punch/Thunder Punch/ EQ, but Knock off can be used to better punish ghosts, specifically Froslass. The raw power of Crab's iron fist boosted moves from that juicy base 132 attack is the reason you're running full trick room. It's good with Choice band to do maximum damage, but I think that Assault Vest is a neat option since it allows you to switch moves and therefore not waste trick room turns.
On the special side, you have Clawitzer. I think we've all experienced a tera dragon mega launcher boosted dragon pulse before, but imagine that under trick room. As juicy as it is to round out Clawitzer with aura sphere, dark pulse, and water pulse for the Mega Launcher potential, you absolutely cannot miss out on U-turn, and options like Hydro Pump and Blizzard are also worth your consideration. I don't need to add too much more since Claw is a meta relevant threat even without trick room, but using it on Trick Room allows you to capitalize on its slow speed and high damage better. Like Crab, you can run a choice item or something like boots or life orb to switch moves. I would recommend running a choice item on at least one of these two, and definitely not on both.
This section was originally going to be your second choices after your primary 2 abusers, but I kept moving Pokémon out of this category until I was left with Lurantis and Arboliva, and both of them honestly deserve their own section. With Lurantis, you take a Contrary sweeper with low speed into a trick room sweeper and it gets more opportunities to start setting up. With Arboliva, you take a strong special attacker with low speed and give it more opportunities to KO opponents. They do have vastly different roles, but they are both great without trick room and potent with it. Lurantis definitely edges out Arbo here, mostly because it's harder to stop one that boosted under trick room and because it gets defog, which would otherwise be nearly impossible to include on a PU trick room team. Additionally, Arbo competes a little with Clawitzer since they are special attackers with very similar roles and stat spreads, which makes the variety of Lurantis more appealing.
After that, these mons are good options for trick room, but don't benefit from it as much as the last 4 mons. If you're specifically looking for OTR tomb partners that's mostly all of these mons.
I'm starting this part with Rhydon, who is slow with a strong damage output and provides utility with stealth rock, but I have not personally used it in dedicated full trick room so I can't fully endorse it there. I have used it alongside OTR tomb (ty Melt Gibson), and being able to pop off a fast earthquake or stone edge is very potent in a meta that isn't used to real ground types.
Eelektross and Muk are next, and both of them are strong physical attackers that can use trick room to take advantage of a switch and click Knock or start setting up. They have the bulk to both be switched in if another mon is threatened and still perform well, which is invaluable on full trick room. The most recent full TR team I used had an Eelektross, and I would endorse it farther on its coil sets if I had ever used it outside of trick room. Yes, it was good and I do recommend it, but I don't know if that had anything to do with trick room.
With Porygon2, it can technically be a trick room setter, but then you lose either recover or tri attack. It's survivable enough to take hits as a sweeper, which is more valuable than being another setter is. My only experience with it is with the secret santa team I linked to below, where it does very well, but I specifically requested the room service item for this mon.
The last mon in this category is Avalugg-h. I really wanted to put it in the next category since it overlaps greatly with Crabominable in terms of offense and since you don't really need Avalugg's defensive profile, but if you are running partial TR or OTR tomb, Avalugg would actually work on those structures.
And finally, Golem-a, Gurdurr, Camerupt, and Trevenant. For Golem-a, it's not that it won't work in trick room, it's that Eelektross and Rhydon are right there, and that Crab gets thunder punch. If you are intent on making Golem-a work it does perform well in TR and is actually viable, but it's not worth running trick room for Golem-a like it is for Crabominable. Gurdurr also overlaps with Crab, and even though it stands out with defog, Lurantis is right there and also gets fighting coverage. I guess Gurdurr is a good status absorber, and I haven't used (or considered) it so I'm probably underselling it, but Gurdurr is not so viable that it justifies trick room. I'm a Camerupt hater, but still, please don't consider it. You don't need fire coverage that badly in this meta and Arbo gets earth power.
And then there's Trevenant. I have no experience outside of PUWC with this mon, and we didn't use trick room on it. It has a movepool that could make Leafeon an S-tier, and it can set trick room or be a CB trick mon. It's worth a shot more than any of these last few mons, but I have absolutely no idea how it performs.
3. The Everything Else.
There is going to be less in this section than the other two, because I'm usually going all or nothing with trick room teams. Usually, it's a good idea to have a plan when trick room is down. I usually do this by using mons that don't need trick room to succeed, like Lurantis or Eelektross. Since they are both viable meta picks outside of the archetype while taking advantage of a TR, that tends to work for me on ladder. Choice Scarf mons or priority users are also pretty good in a 6th slot, since they can revenge something that is able to stall out your trick room turns and outspeed you.
And that's trick room. I was initially drawn to it because we had a lot of slow mons, and trick room is more viable than like Scarf Arbo. I encourage you to take a shot at trick room, because even the slow mons in this meta tend to invest in speed so you're bound to underspeed something. I probably missed something, so if your favorite tr sweeper is Rhydon or if I severely overhyped Lurantis let me know!
Teams, replays, etc:
The latest team I used in testing. A little imperfect (would av crab and specs claw) but still good
My secret santa gift from Melt Gibson, which is the only semi tr I played (explains a lot of my reasonings tbh, and thanks again)
Replays:
Lurantis + claw game |
the only other replay i saved, justifying mbounce (i did only test on ladder and i'm too lazy to grind it but i tried to get replays against solid teams)
TL;DR: Use OTR Spiritomb; use claw, crabominable, and carbink or hattrem on full tr; good slow stuff is also great in full/semi tr