Preface
SubSeed Breloom gets overlooked in a metagame full of strong offensive threats and walls with staggering bulk. However, with recovery between Poison Heal and Leech Seed, and Substitute to keep him protected, Breloom can be quite difficult to get off the field. Given how much potential I saw in this set, I decided to build a team to showcase it. I ended up with a pretty great Balance team that can counter most unbalanced offensive playsyles with two Unaware walls.
Individuals and Justifications
Breloom @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Atk / 252 Def
Impish Nature
- Leech Seed
- Spore
- Substitute
- Focus Punch
Role on Team
Breloom is the team’s switch in to various attackers that rely on Electric, Rock, Ground, Water, Grass, or Dark attacks. He is an effective staller that can provide my team with Leech Seed support and land KOs with residual damage and his SubPunch combo.
Moves
Spore is Breloom’s greatest asset by far, potentially rendering even its best counters useless. Leech Seed couples with Poison Heal for rapid recovery difficult for your opponent to account for while Breloom is behind a Substitute. As for Focus Punch, 8 Atk Breloom Focus Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Great Tusk: 162-192 (43.6 - 51.7%) -- 9.4% chance to 2HKO.
8 Atk Breloom Focus Punch vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Garganacl: 324-384 (80.1 - 95%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery.
Set Details
Maximum physical bulk allows Breloom to make effective use of an overlooked but powerful defensive typing with key resistances to Water, Ground, Electric, Dark, Grass, and Rock, making it a capable check to the likes of Meowscarada, Great Tusk, Quaquaval, and Garchomp lacking Fire Blast. Toxic Orb ensures Breloom can be healed. Poison Heal turns Breloom into my team’s best status absorber, and makes the team much less bothered by Toxic Spikes.
Tera Type
Tera Water gives Breloom better matchups against Pokemon like Chien-Pao and Slowking. This is due to Ice, Water, and Fire resistances. It can also be played around with to alternate resistances to Kingambit’s STABs.
Team Synergies
As a Grass-type, Breloom can easily switch into many attacks that threaten Skeledirge, such as Stone Edge, Earthquake, Liquidation, and, by virtue of his secondary typing, Knock Off and Crunch. He can also switch into Thunderbolts for Corviknight. These are just a few examples, but Breloom packs resistances to certain weaknesses of my entire team.
Checks and Counters
Despite an infinitely useful array of resistances, Breloom has difficulty using them due to attacks carried by would-be checks, such as Chien-Pao’s Icicle Crash and Quaquaval’s Brave Bird. Also, Breloom becomes a dead weight in battle against Gholdengo, but consequently serves as an effective lure that lets me double switch to Great Tusk or Skeledirge.
Skeledirge @ Leftovers
Ability: Unaware
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpA
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Torch Song
- Will-O-Wisp
- Slack Off
- Hex
Overall, Skeledirge is my favorite new Pokemon to use competitively. Even as one of the most difficult to break walls, it retains incredible offensive presence with Torch Song and Hex. I use it on virtually every SV team, since it is usually what carries me to victory in every battle, and its synergy with Breloom made it an easy pick for this team (should I call this core Skeloom or Breledirge)?
Role on Team
Skeledirge is my primary physical wall, chosen for its useful defensive typing, access to Unaware, which can be used to stop all breeds of set-up sweepers, and his lack of passivity, making him a perfect fit for a Balance team.
Moves
Torch Song is obvious, as it allows Skelly to snowball in the long battles it forces and turns one of the game’s sturdiest walls into a powerful wallbreaker. Slack Off makes him impossible to remove from the field. Wil-o-Wisp and Hex have powerful synergy, allowing me to reverse a set-up sweeper’s progress and nail it with a 130 BP STAB move, usually boosted by TS. Wil-o-Wisp, usually in combination with Tera Fairy, allows Skeledirge to easily hard-check Chien-Pao and Dragonite.
Set Details
Skelly also runs a physically defensive EV spread, since it’s base stats favor defense, and most of the opponents it likes to check are physical attackers anyway. Leftovers aren’t typically preferable over Heavy-Duty Boots, but I run them to allow Skelly to recover passively without Slack Off. You would be surprised by all the KOs I have avoided with that tiny blip of HP. Unaware is among Skeledirge’s greatest hallmarks, as it allows him to hard-counter nearly every physical sweeper the game has to offer. I personally would like to see Chien-Pao banned, but I honestly don’t mind if it stays in OU, since Skeledirge alleviates the threat entirely.
Tera Type
Tera Fairy is the only way to go. Without it, Chien-Pao kills us, and we lose to many other things with super-effective damage. For the most part, Fairy is good just because it takes away all of Skelly’s natural weaknesses, but gaining a Dark resist on top of that as well as retaining the ability to eat Fighting-types, gives my team an invaluable Great Tusk, Chien-Pao, and Garchomp counter out of something that would normally lose to them. I Terastalize this guy in something like 50% of my battles.
Team Synergies
As mentioned before, Breloom helps this guy with virtually all of his weaknesses. Skelly can also switch into Fire, Ice, and Fairy-types for Breloom, while beating Gholdengo pretty easily. I honestly can’t tell you how happy I am that my favorite Pokemon and my favorite competitive Pokemon from this generation have such good synergy. With Tera Fairy, Skelly becomes a great switch in from Dragapult to eat Dark attacks. Without the Fairyness, he can also eat up Dragapult’s other weaknesses to Ice and Fairy.
Checks and Counters
The unpredictability of Tera Fairy limits counterplay to Skelly, but he usually does lose to stuff like Kingambit and Gholdengo, who have STABs for each of Skelly’s typings. Residual damage from hazards, especially before Terastalizing, limits switch in opportunities, which is why my team has two hazard cleaners.
Corviknight @ Leftovers
Ability: Mirror Armor
Tera Type: Flying
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Def
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Brave Bird
- U-turn
- Roost
- Defog
Because what’s a team without Corviknight?
Role on Team
Corviknight is the team’s primary hazard cleaner and defensive pivot, chosen for its expertise in both fields. He gives me a solid counter to dangerous threats like Great Tusk and Roaring Moon.
Moves
Brave Bird is an incredible STAB for Corviknight, due to the strong neutral coverage of the Flying-type and the move’s base 120 power. Even uninvested, a Brave Bird can deal punishing damage to any switching-in Volcarona, Cinderace, or Iron Valiant that would otherwise be able to remove Corv from the game. Defog solidifies Corv’s role of removing hazards, and synergizes incredibly well with its typing. U-turn can be used well alongside Defog to safely bring in Dragapult and Skelly free of incoming attacks and hazard chip, both of which can be threatening to these two. Roost is an obvious move, and is essential for healing off chipping from hazards, Brave Bird, and the various attacks he absorbs.
Set Details
We have yet another physical wall. This simple EV spread gives Corv the durability to survive nearly any physical attack, and his typing and natural bulk makes him capable against some special attackers like Gholdengo. Minimal speed gives Corv the slowest possible U-turn, ensuring that I can see what my opponent switches to or that Corviknight can absorb an attack for his team.
Tera Type
Corviknight’s Tera potential is very controversial, given that is has the absolute best typing for its role. However, Tera Flying can be effective for improving matchups against Great Tusk and Cinderace, the former having decent matchups with STAB Close Combat, and the latter being a very solid counter. This also allows Corv to retain necessary immunities to Ground attacks and hazards, and, on top of everything else, provides me with a nuclear Brave Bird.
Team Synergies
There’s really no team Corviknight doesn’t fit well on. This team is no different, as it struggles just as much as any team with hazards, various sweepers, and switch-in opportunities. Corviknight shores up all of these weaknesses with its unique goodie bag of powerful traits. In specific, he helps my Unaware walls by switching into Ground-types, and beats Fairy, Ice, Psychic, and Flying-types that threaten Breloom. He can also greatly benefit from Breloom’s Leech Seed.
Checks and Counters
Without Tera Flying, which I don’t use often in the interest of Tera Fairy Skeledirge, Corviknight finds itself at a loss in battle against offensive Fire-types like Cinderace. Even though he does relatively well against Gholdengo, high powered Shadow Ball attacks can really sting if I’m not prepared for them, landing 2HKOs with any amount of boosting. Corviknight also struggles with passivity while in battle with bulky Steels, since it can’t harm them with Brave Bird.
Great Tusk @ Leftovers
Ability: Protosynthesis
Tera Type: Steel
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Impish Nature
- Bulk Up
- Earthquake
- Knock Off
- Rapid Spin
Because it’s not Gen 9 OU if you don’t have to fight Great Tusk.
Role on Team
GT is my first wallbreaker. It fits well of the team for its solid defensive presence that I can make use of before I set up and sweep. He is also my second hazard cleaner and main Knock Off user.
Moves
I decided to run the Bulk Up set, since it seamlessly combines Great Tusk’s immense offensive and defensive capabilities. Rapid Spin and Bulk Up sort of give GT a double dance thing, allowing it to set up and remove hazards at the same time. Earthquake is the main attack, chosen for high power, STAB, and great coverage. Knock Off is a great secondary attack, as it is the one attack you can’t switch into. While removing items, it also deals heavy damage to opponents like Air Balloon Gholdengo. Given its set-up moves that include Rapid Spin, I have found Great Tusk to be a surprisingly good Ting-Lu counter. T-L can do nothing but set up hazards while in battle with GT, allowing me to freely spin them away and use T-L as set-up fodder, forcing it out of battle with increasingly threatening power and KOing it later during a sweep.
Set Details
A physically defensive EV spread may seem redundant, considering how many physical walls my team already has, but it is essential to be able to check the omnipresent physical attackers that populate the tier. No EVs are invested in attack or speed because GT has the bulk to allow it time to boost these stats to threatening levels, even uninvested. Leftovers are the preferred item as they are GT’s only means of recovery.
Tera Type
Tera Steel turns weaknesses to Grass, Fairy, and Psychic into resistances, improving matchups against opponents like Espathra and Chien-Pao. With GT terastalized, my team becomes heavily Toxic Spikes resistant, and has another strong switch in to Toxic users like Clodsire and Toxapex.
Team Synergies
Up until this point, my team lacks offense, and can be beaten by bulky Poison types, so Great Tusk felt like a good option, and it does a great job beating these threats while supporting the team with necessary hazard control, which could otherwise beat us easily. A defensive typing of Ground/Fighting gives defensive support to Skeledirge, who has inconvenient Rock and Dark weaknesses, Dragapult, who is also Dark-weak, and Corviknight, who falls to Electric-types. His physically offensive nature helps Dragapult by breaking sturdy special walls like Clodsire, Toxapex, and Assault Vest Iron Hands.
Checks and Counters
My team is a little Water-weak, given that my two Water-resists lack any meaningful special bulk. Being that he is running a primarily defensive set, GT doesn’t do as much to shore up the team’s passivity as one would hope. He also shares a fair amount of weaknesses with the rest of my team, including the Ice weaknesses of Breloom, Dragapult, and Clodsire, and the Fairy weaknesses of the former two. This means that my team becomes a little easy to clean in the late game with opponents like Chien-Pao and Iron Valiant, which my team can otherwise handle.
Dragapult @ Choice Specs
Ability: Infiltrator
Tera Type: Fire
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Shadow Ball
- U-turn
- Flamethrower
Role on Team
Dragapult was my preferred spattack wallbreker, chosen for its high speed that made up for my lack of speed control, and the great power it wields with Choice Specs Draco Meteors. It helps by forcing switches and pivoting out with U-turn to gain momentum for my team, and by opening up heavy physical walls like Great Tusk and Toxapex.
Moves
Draco Meteor is the primary STAB move for its sheer power.
Sheer power in question
The basic use of Dragapult it to bring it into battle safely against a wall and drop a Draco Meteor down its throat, then run away. Shadow Ball is an awesome secondary STAB that allows me to counter opponents like Gholdengo, Skeledirge, and Espathra. The matchup against Espathra is especially good, since I can OHKO with Shadow Ball and bypass its Substitute with infiltrator. Flamethrower was chosen as coverage to kill Corviknight and the like. U-turn is essential for safely bringing in allies on forced switches.
Set Details
Maximum speed and spattack are necessary to beat threats like Great Tusk and Chien-Pao locked into a non-priority move. Choice Specs are a little inefficient, but give Pult a lot of power, making up for a modest 100 special attack stat. Infiltrator has a niche in allowing Pult to bypass Espathra’s Substitute, preventing it from setting up and sweeping.
Tera Type
With Tera Fire, checks like Kingambit and Chien-Pao turn into little beans quivering in fear. While I could use Tera Ghost to bring a weaker STAB to glory or go Tera Dragon, which I did originally, to turn Draco Meteor nuclear and OHKO Dondozo, I decided I liked the option of checking Chien-Pao better, since you can never have enough Chien-checks. This also takes away Sucker Punch weakness, while adding an Ice resistance so that 252+ Atk Choice Band Sword of Ruin Chien-Pao Ice Shard vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Tera Fire Dragapult: 86-102 (27.1 - 32.1%) -- guaranteed 4HKO. I am contemplating going back to Tera Dragon, since it gives me enough power to do insane stuff like OHKO Dondozo over ninety percent of the time, but the improved matchups Fire offers me are a little too good to pass up.
Team Synergies
Hazard control and pivot support from Corviknight are essential, and Dragapult, in return for this utility, beats stuff like non-Booster Energy Iron Valiant for Corv, while also being conveniently Fire and Electric-resistant. The teams’s heavy physical offense means it can struggle to break through opponents like Skeledirge and Dondozo, making a heavy special Breaker like Dragapult essential. Skeledirge, if my Tera has not yet been used, can provide an essential Chien-Pao check, something Dragapult should never leave home without.
Checks and Counters
Chien-Pao. Even though this thing isn’t even on my team, I feel like I’ve typed it’s name more than any other Pokemon. Ban it. It has to go. Additionally, without Corviknight, Dragapult has a very hard time getting into battle. Other priority attackers like Kingambit put a ton of pressure on Pult. Thankfully, these matchups are softened by Tera Fire, but Pult usually isn’t the one I Terastalize, since my team has other awesome stuff like Tera Fairy Skeledirge. After Tera Fire, my team becomes infinitely weaker against Water-types, now that one of my two resists is weak to Water (another reason to use Tera Dragon; he keeps his Water resistance). Aqua Jet users like Azumarill and Rain sweepers like Floatzel find it easy to prey upon Pult once he goes arsonist.
Clodsire @ Leftovers
Ability: Unaware
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Toxic
- Recover
- Earthquake
Seems to always be the sixth team member. You get to the end and you just realize “hey, we need Clodsire.”
Role on Team
Clodsire is my special wall. While it seems a little unbalanced to have four physical walls and only one special wall, keep in mind, virtually all prominent attackers are physical, and Clodsire is so hecking thick he doesn’t even know what a special attacker is.
Moves
This is the standard Clodsire set. His devastating blubber lets Clodsire set up Rocks any time he wants and just heal off damage with Recover later. Earthquake makes Cloddy less passive and allows him to counter Gholdengo and Glimmora really hard. Toxic is a great alternative to double switching out of Chien-Pao or the like, as I could just cripple it with Poison instead.
Set Details
There’s no real way to not run max spadef on Clod, since he’s so good at walling spattackers. Leftovers provide passive healing outside of Recover so that I can heal and make progress simultaneously. Unaware is the best possible ability (outside of maybe Water Absorb for Greninja?) to form a sweep-thwarting core with Skelly.
Tera Type
Tera Water Cloddy has the ability to flawlessly counter Greninja, who would otherwise ruin me (why is he even in the game? Pokemon is just mindlessly slapping their favorite starters in to break the metagame with Protean spam. What happened to cool ones like Decidueye and Sceptile?) New resistances to Water and Ice mean many of Cloddy’s former counters like Chien-Pao (there’s his name again) and Azumarill become useless. This also improves the Gholdengo matchup with a Steel resistance.
Team Synergies
Clodsire beats spattackers. That’s all that’s important. More specifically, it makes the battle against Gholdengo and Dragapult less of a coin toss by giving me a solid switch-in throughout the battle. Cloddy also is able to switch into various Fighting-type attacks, stacking resistances with my Ghosts, and can beat Fairies very easily, something my team really needs. This guy also forms a notable defensive core with Corviknight (I call it the Clodknight core). Cloddy absorbs hits from all Electric-types and all heavy special breakers, including a lot of Fire-types. Corviknight in return beats heavy physical attackers, Ground-types, Psychic-types, and Ice-types to some degree, both of them being able to consistently recover their health and switch into each other’s check over a match.
Check and Counters
Offensive Ground-types are probably the biggest counter outside of Chien-Pao (I swear if I have to type Chien-Pao one more time…). Corviknight, while a good partner, is also a pretty solid counter to Clodsire since it is immune to both Poison and Ground, and carries Defog for Cloddy’s hazards. Offensive checks don’t necessarily need set-up if they just have heavy physical attacks, especially super-effective ones, which goes for every Pokemon, but Cloddy especially since he doesn’t have the defense to back up its high HP. Many opponent’s like Garchomp, Great Tusk, Quaquaval, and Psyshock Iron Valiant are too much for Clod to handle, forcing it to switch out faster than a wall ever should.
Other Options
Even though the team was built around SubSeed Breloom, I have found that different sets, or even a different teammate can pay off when used. I experimented with an offensive Poison Heal set to retain Breloom’s defensive utility while giving the team another breaker and allowing Breloom to lure and KO Gholdengo with Tera Fire. Meowscarada was also effective for its better speed and access to Spikes, which made up for the team’s lack of good hazard stacking. STAB Knock Off was also infinitely useful for killing opposing Skeledirge. However, Meowscarada offered little more than this, since Breloom’s defensive presence was much more essential. Tera Fighting with Tera Blast on Dragapult can be run to resist Sucker Punch from his checks and hit them harder, although Tera boosted Flamethrower is all that is necessary to OHKO Kingambit and Chien-Pao. Here are the specific sets:
Checks and Counters
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Iron Valiant
IV has the coverage to take on my team pretty well. Battles with it are never a helpless loss, as my team has enough counterplay, but it is always capable of running something to hit any of my team members, like Thunderbolt for Corviknight, Booster Energy for Dragapult, Psyshock for Clodsire, and Shadow Ball for Skeledirge.
-
Lack of Special Defense
While I did say tons of spadef wasn’t necessary, counterplay to opponents like Greninja and Espathra is limited when my only special wall is weak to their STABs.
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Greninja
I don’t think this thing should have been added back so carelessly. As mentioned before, Greninja is a little hard to stop when the only special wall I have will 252 SpA Choice Specs Greninja Hydro Pump vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Clodsire: 330-390 (71.2 - 84.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO. Thankfully, however, 252 SpA Choice Specs Dragapult Draco Meteor vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Greninja: 351-414 (123.1 - 145.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO. But, at the same time, 252 SpA Choice Specs Greninja Water Shuriken (15 BP) (3 hits) vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Tera Fire Dragapult: 240-288 (75.7 - 90.8%) -- approx. 2HKO. I think I will change Pult over to Tera Fighting, if for nothing else than the Stealth Rock resistance.
Conclusions
I really like this team, and I think that is because it has solid counters to many prominent threats that are hard for most teams to deal with (Pult vs. Espathra, Skelly and Cloddy vs Gholdengo, Skelly and Pult vs. Chien-Pao, etc.). Despite its flaws, the team feels well built for the most part, and has done very well in the somewhat little time I have laddered with it. Any suggestions as to how I can improve my team (which I consider my best SV team so far) is greatly appreciated, even if it means giving up Breloom (but don’t actually take Breloom).
Replays
(Very short battle, just proof of the Espathra matchup)
SubSeed Breloom gets overlooked in a metagame full of strong offensive threats and walls with staggering bulk. However, with recovery between Poison Heal and Leech Seed, and Substitute to keep him protected, Breloom can be quite difficult to get off the field. Given how much potential I saw in this set, I decided to build a team to showcase it. I ended up with a pretty great Balance team that can counter most unbalanced offensive playsyles with two Unaware walls.
The Team
click sprites for Pokepaste
click sprites for Pokepaste
Individuals and Justifications
Breloom @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Atk / 252 Def
Impish Nature
- Leech Seed
- Spore
- Substitute
- Focus Punch
Role on Team
Breloom is the team’s switch in to various attackers that rely on Electric, Rock, Ground, Water, Grass, or Dark attacks. He is an effective staller that can provide my team with Leech Seed support and land KOs with residual damage and his SubPunch combo.
Moves
Spore is Breloom’s greatest asset by far, potentially rendering even its best counters useless. Leech Seed couples with Poison Heal for rapid recovery difficult for your opponent to account for while Breloom is behind a Substitute. As for Focus Punch, 8 Atk Breloom Focus Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Great Tusk: 162-192 (43.6 - 51.7%) -- 9.4% chance to 2HKO.
8 Atk Breloom Focus Punch vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Garganacl: 324-384 (80.1 - 95%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery.
Set Details
Maximum physical bulk allows Breloom to make effective use of an overlooked but powerful defensive typing with key resistances to Water, Ground, Electric, Dark, Grass, and Rock, making it a capable check to the likes of Meowscarada, Great Tusk, Quaquaval, and Garchomp lacking Fire Blast. Toxic Orb ensures Breloom can be healed. Poison Heal turns Breloom into my team’s best status absorber, and makes the team much less bothered by Toxic Spikes.
Tera Type
Tera Water gives Breloom better matchups against Pokemon like Chien-Pao and Slowking. This is due to Ice, Water, and Fire resistances. It can also be played around with to alternate resistances to Kingambit’s STABs.
Team Synergies
As a Grass-type, Breloom can easily switch into many attacks that threaten Skeledirge, such as Stone Edge, Earthquake, Liquidation, and, by virtue of his secondary typing, Knock Off and Crunch. He can also switch into Thunderbolts for Corviknight. These are just a few examples, but Breloom packs resistances to certain weaknesses of my entire team.
Checks and Counters
Despite an infinitely useful array of resistances, Breloom has difficulty using them due to attacks carried by would-be checks, such as Chien-Pao’s Icicle Crash and Quaquaval’s Brave Bird. Also, Breloom becomes a dead weight in battle against Gholdengo, but consequently serves as an effective lure that lets me double switch to Great Tusk or Skeledirge.
Skeledirge @ Leftovers
Ability: Unaware
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpA
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Torch Song
- Will-O-Wisp
- Slack Off
- Hex
Overall, Skeledirge is my favorite new Pokemon to use competitively. Even as one of the most difficult to break walls, it retains incredible offensive presence with Torch Song and Hex. I use it on virtually every SV team, since it is usually what carries me to victory in every battle, and its synergy with Breloom made it an easy pick for this team (should I call this core Skeloom or Breledirge)?
Role on Team
Skeledirge is my primary physical wall, chosen for its useful defensive typing, access to Unaware, which can be used to stop all breeds of set-up sweepers, and his lack of passivity, making him a perfect fit for a Balance team.
Moves
Torch Song is obvious, as it allows Skelly to snowball in the long battles it forces and turns one of the game’s sturdiest walls into a powerful wallbreaker. Slack Off makes him impossible to remove from the field. Wil-o-Wisp and Hex have powerful synergy, allowing me to reverse a set-up sweeper’s progress and nail it with a 130 BP STAB move, usually boosted by TS. Wil-o-Wisp, usually in combination with Tera Fairy, allows Skeledirge to easily hard-check Chien-Pao and Dragonite.
Set Details
Skelly also runs a physically defensive EV spread, since it’s base stats favor defense, and most of the opponents it likes to check are physical attackers anyway. Leftovers aren’t typically preferable over Heavy-Duty Boots, but I run them to allow Skelly to recover passively without Slack Off. You would be surprised by all the KOs I have avoided with that tiny blip of HP. Unaware is among Skeledirge’s greatest hallmarks, as it allows him to hard-counter nearly every physical sweeper the game has to offer. I personally would like to see Chien-Pao banned, but I honestly don’t mind if it stays in OU, since Skeledirge alleviates the threat entirely.
Tera Type
Tera Fairy is the only way to go. Without it, Chien-Pao kills us, and we lose to many other things with super-effective damage. For the most part, Fairy is good just because it takes away all of Skelly’s natural weaknesses, but gaining a Dark resist on top of that as well as retaining the ability to eat Fighting-types, gives my team an invaluable Great Tusk, Chien-Pao, and Garchomp counter out of something that would normally lose to them. I Terastalize this guy in something like 50% of my battles.
Team Synergies
As mentioned before, Breloom helps this guy with virtually all of his weaknesses. Skelly can also switch into Fire, Ice, and Fairy-types for Breloom, while beating Gholdengo pretty easily. I honestly can’t tell you how happy I am that my favorite Pokemon and my favorite competitive Pokemon from this generation have such good synergy. With Tera Fairy, Skelly becomes a great switch in from Dragapult to eat Dark attacks. Without the Fairyness, he can also eat up Dragapult’s other weaknesses to Ice and Fairy.
Checks and Counters
The unpredictability of Tera Fairy limits counterplay to Skelly, but he usually does lose to stuff like Kingambit and Gholdengo, who have STABs for each of Skelly’s typings. Residual damage from hazards, especially before Terastalizing, limits switch in opportunities, which is why my team has two hazard cleaners.
Corviknight @ Leftovers
Ability: Mirror Armor
Tera Type: Flying
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Def
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Brave Bird
- U-turn
- Roost
- Defog
Because what’s a team without Corviknight?
Role on Team
Corviknight is the team’s primary hazard cleaner and defensive pivot, chosen for its expertise in both fields. He gives me a solid counter to dangerous threats like Great Tusk and Roaring Moon.
Moves
Brave Bird is an incredible STAB for Corviknight, due to the strong neutral coverage of the Flying-type and the move’s base 120 power. Even uninvested, a Brave Bird can deal punishing damage to any switching-in Volcarona, Cinderace, or Iron Valiant that would otherwise be able to remove Corv from the game. Defog solidifies Corv’s role of removing hazards, and synergizes incredibly well with its typing. U-turn can be used well alongside Defog to safely bring in Dragapult and Skelly free of incoming attacks and hazard chip, both of which can be threatening to these two. Roost is an obvious move, and is essential for healing off chipping from hazards, Brave Bird, and the various attacks he absorbs.
Set Details
We have yet another physical wall. This simple EV spread gives Corv the durability to survive nearly any physical attack, and his typing and natural bulk makes him capable against some special attackers like Gholdengo. Minimal speed gives Corv the slowest possible U-turn, ensuring that I can see what my opponent switches to or that Corviknight can absorb an attack for his team.
Tera Type
Corviknight’s Tera potential is very controversial, given that is has the absolute best typing for its role. However, Tera Flying can be effective for improving matchups against Great Tusk and Cinderace, the former having decent matchups with STAB Close Combat, and the latter being a very solid counter. This also allows Corv to retain necessary immunities to Ground attacks and hazards, and, on top of everything else, provides me with a nuclear Brave Bird.
Team Synergies
There’s really no team Corviknight doesn’t fit well on. This team is no different, as it struggles just as much as any team with hazards, various sweepers, and switch-in opportunities. Corviknight shores up all of these weaknesses with its unique goodie bag of powerful traits. In specific, he helps my Unaware walls by switching into Ground-types, and beats Fairy, Ice, Psychic, and Flying-types that threaten Breloom. He can also greatly benefit from Breloom’s Leech Seed.
Checks and Counters
Without Tera Flying, which I don’t use often in the interest of Tera Fairy Skeledirge, Corviknight finds itself at a loss in battle against offensive Fire-types like Cinderace. Even though he does relatively well against Gholdengo, high powered Shadow Ball attacks can really sting if I’m not prepared for them, landing 2HKOs with any amount of boosting. Corviknight also struggles with passivity while in battle with bulky Steels, since it can’t harm them with Brave Bird.
Great Tusk @ Leftovers
Ability: Protosynthesis
Tera Type: Steel
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Impish Nature
- Bulk Up
- Earthquake
- Knock Off
- Rapid Spin
Because it’s not Gen 9 OU if you don’t have to fight Great Tusk.
Role on Team
GT is my first wallbreaker. It fits well of the team for its solid defensive presence that I can make use of before I set up and sweep. He is also my second hazard cleaner and main Knock Off user.
Moves
I decided to run the Bulk Up set, since it seamlessly combines Great Tusk’s immense offensive and defensive capabilities. Rapid Spin and Bulk Up sort of give GT a double dance thing, allowing it to set up and remove hazards at the same time. Earthquake is the main attack, chosen for high power, STAB, and great coverage. Knock Off is a great secondary attack, as it is the one attack you can’t switch into. While removing items, it also deals heavy damage to opponents like Air Balloon Gholdengo. Given its set-up moves that include Rapid Spin, I have found Great Tusk to be a surprisingly good Ting-Lu counter. T-L can do nothing but set up hazards while in battle with GT, allowing me to freely spin them away and use T-L as set-up fodder, forcing it out of battle with increasingly threatening power and KOing it later during a sweep.
Set Details
A physically defensive EV spread may seem redundant, considering how many physical walls my team already has, but it is essential to be able to check the omnipresent physical attackers that populate the tier. No EVs are invested in attack or speed because GT has the bulk to allow it time to boost these stats to threatening levels, even uninvested. Leftovers are the preferred item as they are GT’s only means of recovery.
Tera Type
Tera Steel turns weaknesses to Grass, Fairy, and Psychic into resistances, improving matchups against opponents like Espathra and Chien-Pao. With GT terastalized, my team becomes heavily Toxic Spikes resistant, and has another strong switch in to Toxic users like Clodsire and Toxapex.
Team Synergies
Up until this point, my team lacks offense, and can be beaten by bulky Poison types, so Great Tusk felt like a good option, and it does a great job beating these threats while supporting the team with necessary hazard control, which could otherwise beat us easily. A defensive typing of Ground/Fighting gives defensive support to Skeledirge, who has inconvenient Rock and Dark weaknesses, Dragapult, who is also Dark-weak, and Corviknight, who falls to Electric-types. His physically offensive nature helps Dragapult by breaking sturdy special walls like Clodsire, Toxapex, and Assault Vest Iron Hands.
Checks and Counters
My team is a little Water-weak, given that my two Water-resists lack any meaningful special bulk. Being that he is running a primarily defensive set, GT doesn’t do as much to shore up the team’s passivity as one would hope. He also shares a fair amount of weaknesses with the rest of my team, including the Ice weaknesses of Breloom, Dragapult, and Clodsire, and the Fairy weaknesses of the former two. This means that my team becomes a little easy to clean in the late game with opponents like Chien-Pao and Iron Valiant, which my team can otherwise handle.
Dragapult @ Choice Specs
Ability: Infiltrator
Tera Type: Fire
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Shadow Ball
- U-turn
- Flamethrower
Role on Team
Dragapult was my preferred spattack wallbreker, chosen for its high speed that made up for my lack of speed control, and the great power it wields with Choice Specs Draco Meteors. It helps by forcing switches and pivoting out with U-turn to gain momentum for my team, and by opening up heavy physical walls like Great Tusk and Toxapex.
Moves
Draco Meteor is the primary STAB move for its sheer power.
Sheer power in question
The basic use of Dragapult it to bring it into battle safely against a wall and drop a Draco Meteor down its throat, then run away. Shadow Ball is an awesome secondary STAB that allows me to counter opponents like Gholdengo, Skeledirge, and Espathra. The matchup against Espathra is especially good, since I can OHKO with Shadow Ball and bypass its Substitute with infiltrator. Flamethrower was chosen as coverage to kill Corviknight and the like. U-turn is essential for safely bringing in allies on forced switches.
Set Details
Maximum speed and spattack are necessary to beat threats like Great Tusk and Chien-Pao locked into a non-priority move. Choice Specs are a little inefficient, but give Pult a lot of power, making up for a modest 100 special attack stat. Infiltrator has a niche in allowing Pult to bypass Espathra’s Substitute, preventing it from setting up and sweeping.
Tera Type
With Tera Fire, checks like Kingambit and Chien-Pao turn into little beans quivering in fear. While I could use Tera Ghost to bring a weaker STAB to glory or go Tera Dragon, which I did originally, to turn Draco Meteor nuclear and OHKO Dondozo, I decided I liked the option of checking Chien-Pao better, since you can never have enough Chien-checks. This also takes away Sucker Punch weakness, while adding an Ice resistance so that 252+ Atk Choice Band Sword of Ruin Chien-Pao Ice Shard vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Tera Fire Dragapult: 86-102 (27.1 - 32.1%) -- guaranteed 4HKO. I am contemplating going back to Tera Dragon, since it gives me enough power to do insane stuff like OHKO Dondozo over ninety percent of the time, but the improved matchups Fire offers me are a little too good to pass up.
Team Synergies
Hazard control and pivot support from Corviknight are essential, and Dragapult, in return for this utility, beats stuff like non-Booster Energy Iron Valiant for Corv, while also being conveniently Fire and Electric-resistant. The teams’s heavy physical offense means it can struggle to break through opponents like Skeledirge and Dondozo, making a heavy special Breaker like Dragapult essential. Skeledirge, if my Tera has not yet been used, can provide an essential Chien-Pao check, something Dragapult should never leave home without.
Checks and Counters
Chien-Pao. Even though this thing isn’t even on my team, I feel like I’ve typed it’s name more than any other Pokemon. Ban it. It has to go. Additionally, without Corviknight, Dragapult has a very hard time getting into battle. Other priority attackers like Kingambit put a ton of pressure on Pult. Thankfully, these matchups are softened by Tera Fire, but Pult usually isn’t the one I Terastalize, since my team has other awesome stuff like Tera Fairy Skeledirge. After Tera Fire, my team becomes infinitely weaker against Water-types, now that one of my two resists is weak to Water (another reason to use Tera Dragon; he keeps his Water resistance). Aqua Jet users like Azumarill and Rain sweepers like Floatzel find it easy to prey upon Pult once he goes arsonist.
Clodsire @ Leftovers
Ability: Unaware
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Toxic
- Recover
- Earthquake
Seems to always be the sixth team member. You get to the end and you just realize “hey, we need Clodsire.”
Role on Team
Clodsire is my special wall. While it seems a little unbalanced to have four physical walls and only one special wall, keep in mind, virtually all prominent attackers are physical, and Clodsire is so hecking thick he doesn’t even know what a special attacker is.
Moves
This is the standard Clodsire set. His devastating blubber lets Clodsire set up Rocks any time he wants and just heal off damage with Recover later. Earthquake makes Cloddy less passive and allows him to counter Gholdengo and Glimmora really hard. Toxic is a great alternative to double switching out of Chien-Pao or the like, as I could just cripple it with Poison instead.
Set Details
There’s no real way to not run max spadef on Clod, since he’s so good at walling spattackers. Leftovers provide passive healing outside of Recover so that I can heal and make progress simultaneously. Unaware is the best possible ability (outside of maybe Water Absorb for Greninja?) to form a sweep-thwarting core with Skelly.
Tera Type
Tera Water Cloddy has the ability to flawlessly counter Greninja, who would otherwise ruin me (why is he even in the game? Pokemon is just mindlessly slapping their favorite starters in to break the metagame with Protean spam. What happened to cool ones like Decidueye and Sceptile?) New resistances to Water and Ice mean many of Cloddy’s former counters like Chien-Pao (there’s his name again) and Azumarill become useless. This also improves the Gholdengo matchup with a Steel resistance.
Team Synergies
Clodsire beats spattackers. That’s all that’s important. More specifically, it makes the battle against Gholdengo and Dragapult less of a coin toss by giving me a solid switch-in throughout the battle. Cloddy also is able to switch into various Fighting-type attacks, stacking resistances with my Ghosts, and can beat Fairies very easily, something my team really needs. This guy also forms a notable defensive core with Corviknight (I call it the Clodknight core). Cloddy absorbs hits from all Electric-types and all heavy special breakers, including a lot of Fire-types. Corviknight in return beats heavy physical attackers, Ground-types, Psychic-types, and Ice-types to some degree, both of them being able to consistently recover their health and switch into each other’s check over a match.
Check and Counters
Offensive Ground-types are probably the biggest counter outside of Chien-Pao (I swear if I have to type Chien-Pao one more time…). Corviknight, while a good partner, is also a pretty solid counter to Clodsire since it is immune to both Poison and Ground, and carries Defog for Cloddy’s hazards. Offensive checks don’t necessarily need set-up if they just have heavy physical attacks, especially super-effective ones, which goes for every Pokemon, but Cloddy especially since he doesn’t have the defense to back up its high HP. Many opponent’s like Garchomp, Great Tusk, Quaquaval, and Psyshock Iron Valiant are too much for Clod to handle, forcing it to switch out faster than a wall ever should.
Other Options
Even though the team was built around SubSeed Breloom, I have found that different sets, or even a different teammate can pay off when used. I experimented with an offensive Poison Heal set to retain Breloom’s defensive utility while giving the team another breaker and allowing Breloom to lure and KO Gholdengo with Tera Fire. Meowscarada was also effective for its better speed and access to Spikes, which made up for the team’s lack of good hazard stacking. STAB Knock Off was also infinitely useful for killing opposing Skeledirge. However, Meowscarada offered little more than this, since Breloom’s defensive presence was much more essential. Tera Fighting with Tera Blast on Dragapult can be run to resist Sucker Punch from his checks and hit them harder, although Tera boosted Flamethrower is all that is necessary to OHKO Kingambit and Chien-Pao. Here are the specific sets:
Checks and Counters
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Iron ValiantIV has the coverage to take on my team pretty well. Battles with it are never a helpless loss, as my team has enough counterplay, but it is always capable of running something to hit any of my team members, like Thunderbolt for Corviknight, Booster Energy for Dragapult, Psyshock for Clodsire, and Shadow Ball for Skeledirge.
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Lack of Special DefenseWhile I did say tons of spadef wasn’t necessary, counterplay to opponents like Greninja and Espathra is limited when my only special wall is weak to their STABs.
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GreninjaI don’t think this thing should have been added back so carelessly. As mentioned before, Greninja is a little hard to stop when the only special wall I have will 252 SpA Choice Specs Greninja Hydro Pump vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Clodsire: 330-390 (71.2 - 84.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO. Thankfully, however, 252 SpA Choice Specs Dragapult Draco Meteor vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Greninja: 351-414 (123.1 - 145.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO. But, at the same time, 252 SpA Choice Specs Greninja Water Shuriken (15 BP) (3 hits) vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Tera Fire Dragapult: 240-288 (75.7 - 90.8%) -- approx. 2HKO. I think I will change Pult over to Tera Fighting, if for nothing else than the Stealth Rock resistance.
Conclusions
I really like this team, and I think that is because it has solid counters to many prominent threats that are hard for most teams to deal with (Pult vs. Espathra, Skelly and Cloddy vs Gholdengo, Skelly and Pult vs. Chien-Pao, etc.). Despite its flaws, the team feels well built for the most part, and has done very well in the somewhat little time I have laddered with it. Any suggestions as to how I can improve my team (which I consider my best SV team so far) is greatly appreciated, even if it means giving up Breloom (but don’t actually take Breloom).
Replays
(Very short battle, just proof of the Espathra matchup)
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