Project RarelyUsed Teambuilding Competition: Week Seven - Double Dogs

[FlamPoke]

Thank you to all of our participants this week, apparently the masses yearned for more pivots so we got a ton of cool submissions! Please choose your three favorite teams below; voting ends Monday, March 10th at 8am GMT -6.

Choice Specs Toxtricity PivotSpam by Daharan
Eject Pack Volcanion HO by Canard
Basculegion + AV Magnezone PivotSpam by Heatranator
Choice Band Galarian Zapdos + AV Magnezone PivotSpam by mdollerup
MienKou + Tera Blast Fairy Krookodile PivotSpam by Lyra
Choice Specs Hisuian Zoroark PivotSpam by Squeeby
Triple Fighting + Future Sight PivotSpam by Elec-ant1234
Bulk Up Krookodile PivotSpam by HoopsspooH
MienKou + Psychic Noise Noivern PivotSpam by Sneakyplanner
Healing Wish Chansey + Taunt PomPom PivotSpam by THE_CHUNGLER

My choices this week are Daharan for loading a pretty balanced team that still has immediate power and setup potential, Heatranator for using one of my favorite sets in AV Magnezone with Basculegion as a pretty cool wallbreaker choice (although Liquidation is a funny choice...), and Lyra for using several great options like LO Mienshao and Tera Blast Fairy Krookodile.

 

[Hyper bol]

elec ant hoopsspooh the lyra

 

[Hovercat2475]

Lyra cause I like the noivern jirachi combo and the krook set, elec for the very fun future sight+fighting type combo, and heatranator for the cool volt turn combo of mag and basc

 

[Tubular]

Canard, Elec-ant, and Daharan

 

[mestreoscar]

Voting for Heatranator, sneakyplanner and Chungler

 

[Kindyy]

Voting for elec-ant, HoopsspooH , and Lyra

 

[Flabeauf]

voting for chungler, canard and elec ant

 

[Sneakyplanner]

My votes go to Daharan and Lyra

 

[seed]

daharan lyra chungler

 

[FlamPoke]

And with that the winner this week is Lyra! Congratulations and great work from everybody else, this was a tight race.
MienKou + Tera Blast Fairy Krookodile PivotSpam by Lyra

Week Six up soontm

 

[FlamPoke]

Week Six: RUPL Mascots

This week we're rallying off of the hype of RUPL XII by making the subject RUPL Mascots! Your team for this round should feature two of the eight mascots (the Deranged Hustlers mascot for the sake of this will be Hisuian Lilligant), which gives you plenty of room to exercise your creativity given how excellent the list is.

While most of the mascots skew offensive with notable threats like Entei, Maushold, and Galarian Zapdos, creative minds can use the defensive utility of Pokemon like Fezandipiti, Golurk, and Slither Wing to capably anchor key slots on bulky offense teams. Tornadus and Hisuian Lilligant may not be RU by usage this generation but have the traits necessary to also function as dynamic offensive tools, threatening to clean late-game with their powerful setup options in Nasty Plot and Victory Dance, respectively. Regardless of the direction you choose to go I believe these options provide ample opportunity to create well-rounded teams; please submit your teams by the deadline of Friday, March 14th at 3pm GMT -6.

Teams for reference

 

[Sneakyplanner]

Entei Spikes / Fat Offence



This is my revenge on Flampoke for not drafting me. Entei has embraced its inner focus is now a member of the Toxic chains under Alolan Muk; Prime Minister of His Majesty Fezandipiti. This is a pretty heavy hitting team, but it is also a lot more bulky than typical offensive teams. Entei, Volcanion and Zapdos are the big threats on the team, and they all have some solid defensive stats. The low speed is made up for by Entei's priority, giving you an out vs any faster threats that Gapdos can't handle.

Spikes work really well with Entei because you can stack passive damage along with Sacred Fire burns and make up for your not-too-high attack stat. Adamant Entei is extremely fun and optimal. You get way better damage and don't really lose out on too much speed. The only relevant pokemon in the gap between 328 and 299 are Mimikyu, Krookodile and Oricorio. You tend to beat all 3 even with the lower speed, since you are immune to intimidate, threaten the first two with butns and can hit Krook and the bird that I hate with extremespeed. The last move on this set is double edge instead of the standard crunch. Basculegion is fake and can't hurt you when you have Chesnaught and Muk on the squad, and tera normal double edge gives you a very strong move to bop any water types with instead of just hitting Slowbro, which crunch still does poorly.
Spikes support, knock off to remove boots from mons that would otherwise dodge your hazards, rocky helmet, a much needed grass type for Entei that can switch into water, ground and rock attacks. Chesnaught fits in so well with Entei, they're besties.
Mamoswine made me do this. Bronzong is basically the only defensive Swine answer not named Slowbro. But it also functions as a solid Registeel-like. The double psychic resist is nice when you have two fighters, the typing helps vs gapdos.
Team needs a solid special wall, a dark type, a knock off mon and some more passive damage, and Muk does all that well. Muk is an underrated mon, it just gets work done and is amazing at dealing with calm mind psychics as well as the ghosts.
Volcanion fits on every RU team. It gives you an immunity to a very important type, a solid defensive typing and wins you the rain matchup while also hitting like a truck. Roar is an underrated option on Volc, and it fits extremely well on a spikes team. Roar makes you 100% guaranteed to win vs Suicune and Slowbro as long as you have 1 hp and your tera while also being nearly as good vs Umbreon as taunt.
The other RU mon that can fit on nearly every team. Gapdos gives you everything you need. Speed, power, utility, it does it all. It also adds some really necessary speed on this team, seeing how nothing else is faster than 300. Entei's priority helps a lot, but you still need some solid speed control that Gapdos reliably provides.

And here's a replay: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2318344799?p2

 

[Tubular]

Golurk + CB Slither Balance

*All sets are standard*
​

- I wanted to use a new mon, and Golurk is the most appealing to me. No Guard means it can spam Poltergeist and gen 4 champ's cheat move Dynamic Punch. Sr forms a hazstack core with klef, as it has Spikes and twave for Golurk's middling speed.

- Checks mamo and dark types for Golurk and can safely switch into it with slow U-Turn.

- I needed something to deal with defensive mons like hippo and tflame, so volc fits in nicely. Not only it absorbs will-o, it also resists what Golurk and slither are weak to, such as water and fairy. Taunt shuts down setup sweepers for cycle, though you can use Roar to better synergize with cycle's Knock Off.

- A physical wall that resists flying and physic and absorbs poison for bro. The aforementioned twave is another form a speed control for the slow wallbreakers, and Spikes wears down checks for them. Air Balloon patches up the team's ground weakness, though slither and volc addresses mons such as krook and rhy.

- A special wall that resists water, electric, and ghost. Not much to say, bike does what it does.

- I struggled what my last mon should be. The team has a solid offensive and defensive presense, only struggling with ground defensively, but bro worked out pretty well! It forms a regen core with cycle, as cycle is immune to ghost and removes hazards. Future Sight is great, as it, hazards, and U-Turn rack a lot of damage. Slither also appericates bro, as Future Sight lures in krook and bro so it can enter the field.

Replays:
vs. megustatusangre: This is before Golurk has sr, but it demostrates bro and slither's synergy. Future Sight put the opponent in an uncomfortable position, as it and cb slither ensures a mon either dies or is severly damaged.
vs. No mechanic 200 IQ: A very close game where two ghost mons (one being tera ghost klef) denying Rapid Spin and predictions won me the game.

 

[mikejohns]

Cresselia Balance


​

Had this team in my builder for about a week or so and wanted to enter it as Slither and, to a lesser extent, Gapdos are excellent as both pivots and offensive presences. They form a useful offensive type overlap that progressively chips bulkier mons(Hippo, Slowbro, Quag) who aim to switch into absorb fighting type attacks only to be met with constant U-turns. This eventual erosion of defensive pieces will allow Volc and Cress to fire off strong attacks and to boost up to take over games respectively.

I originally wanted to build around Cress for its ability to switch in/handle the prominent scarf abusers in the meta(Krook, Gapdos, Gardevoir) and force them out by means of stacking CMs or threatening immediate damage. The combination of Tbolt and Moonblast hit the tier surprisingly well offensively, landing neutrally on every mon in the tier aside from Magnezone. But ultimately, Cress still necessitates multiple calm mind boosts to get going and this will usually make it bait in threatening dark and ghost types.

To handle the threatening dark types Slither is able to switch into Bisharp and Krook while threatening to U-turn, recover off damage, or dish out big damage with First Impression and CC. It has some difficulty with switching in and getting worn down by Crawdaunt, especially if it's not banded, but +2 priority in a meta with tera and speed boosting mons like Maus and Armarouge will always be a very strong tool. Pivoting out on common switch-ins like bulky ground types, Geezing, and flying types allows. you to reset and switch to Cress or go to Volc/Gapdos to threaten.

To counteract the lackluster immediate offensive output from this team I included Rhyp to have an a more instant physical threat that could capitalize on mons switching out with rocks that Hippo sometimes struggles with. Along with this offensively inclined reasoning I also didn't want to use Hippo as sand chip would be counterintuitive to Cress. On the defensive side Rhyp adds a flying resistance that this team desperately needs with two fighting types. And it generally matches well into defoggers not named Geezing.

At this point the team needed a special wall that switches somewhat well switch into ghost moves. Hoodra accomplishes this while threatening knock into mons like Gengar and Horoark. On top of this it can be used to cover Rhyp's weaknesses to Grass and Water and fire back with a strong Dracos/BPs, or facilitate double switches into Gapdos for easy U-turning. Another application of this mon is Gooey, since this team lacks speed outside of Gapdos, lowering by one stage is usually just enough for Volc or Slither to take advantage.

This mon is just so splashable in this tier and fits on so many teams. In this instance, Scarf helps with this team's speed problem and matches up favorably against slower choice locked mons while pressuring U-turn and Knock. It's also imperative to this teams damage output with two 120 bp moves as well as being a secondary pivot to Slither.

Volc was brought in to solve the Geezing problem, as it somewhat just sits on this team(something inevitable as it has almost 20% usage). Volc can swtich in on Strange Steam, Will-o, defog, and really only gets punished by toxic, sludge bomb or Strange Steam confusion. But this mon helps with the Crawdaunt problem Slither can face and is useful for luring in a Cyclizar hoping to Rapid Spin or Knock.

Replays:

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2317152237?p2
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2317141222?p2
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2317130412?p2
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2316137843?p2

 

[Elec-ant1234]

stupid ass ho
- - - - -

After I was having middling success with BO teams (do NOT go wo-chien registeel fez in this meta, this shit is hellish to pilot), I decided that the next best option would be to take away canard's chance at submitting a team. I feel like it was either these 6 or this but torn instead of hilli, and so I shall explain what mine team be.

The mini mice, the goofy goobers, the serial killers. They act as psuedo hazard control, and as very potent sweepers. Just don't run into weezing or hippo or quagsire (actually that one is preferred). Y'all know what they do. Here as my first RUPL Mascot.

This was my second RUPL Mascot, who I chose, mainly cause I tried torn before and it just didn't work out, but you know it's fine, cause hilligant is fine actually. Uses a very different set from normal mainly cause this one is specifically teched to be actually consistent and like good. Main idea is that it uses loaded dice bullet seed as it's stab option so that hilligant doesn't get completely mollywhopped by geezing, and tera fire is there for both the geezing and talonflame MU, while also allowing you to set up an entei or something potentially. Bonus: Loaded Dice additionally makes Triple Axel more consistent as it makes it so that Triple Axel only requires one accuracy check, raising the 3 hit consistency from about 74% to 90%! I'm not running hustle.

Here as the resident hazard lead, props to Canard yada yada. You know what it does, there's nothing special here. It clicks taunt, it clicks SR, it clicks endeavor or CC, it betrays you and your entire family by letting horoark in for free, you know. The works.

The bitch

No Endure CM today, having energy ball as an option to smack quagsire around with is simply the more preferential option, and it's not like I'm lacking in cheese

Here as an option for anti-HO measures like Quagsire and Umbreon, AKA, a way to decimate BO and stall cores. It's also what I imagine Canard would put over Mence, as even through we've got a hilligant, in the end this team is lacking in ways to deal with the sire, and mence simply wouldn't be able to pull through methinks.


REPLAY ZONE
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2319455229?p2 Vs. nong211
nong's bronzong wasn't able to pull through, and their crawdaunt apparently didn't have aqua jet so i just kinda won on the spot

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2319509278 Vs. rafapaia bankai
Game vs. an average sticky webs team. The two RUPL gamers sadly couldn't enter, but even with an Armarouge greed and lycanrock para I won due to pure skill

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2319568049-euk5oi9wih47blq1929gf1du3wka7r1pw Vs. Gaderking
Hilligant Sweep! The inital tera fire turn was a gamble on him clicking WoW, but him revealing defog told me all I needed to know and allowed me to just keep setting up, even through the confusion. No defog, no toxic, no service.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2319725031 Vs. nattohd
A creature feature. featuring: the creature.

 

[gooberclimbton3]

Balanced hazard stack
https://pokepast.es/14a3c8aef8b24043

Tornadus is our first featured mon and the primary special attacker of the team. Bleakwind + focus blast coverage is almost unresistable and due to the high base power of these moves they can hit like a truck (see calcs). Nasty plot is a must and can catch opponents off guard if they aren't expecting it. Knock off is extremely helpful in our effort to remove enemy boots, leftovers, and etc, it could've been switched for U-turn, making cyclizar our only knock off user in return for more momentum. Tera fighting helps us resist sucker punches and boost focus blast damage to reach KOs. Defiant can end up baiting people into staying/sending in phys walls only to get hit for like 60/70 (Most prominent case switching in on weezing defog, which can scare them into trying to wisp).
+2 252 SpA Tera Fighting Tornadus Bleakwind Storm (100 BP) vs. 104 HP / 152 SpD Assault Vest Cyclizar: 246-289 (80.1 - 94.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+2 252 SpA Tornadus Focus Blast (120 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Umbreon: 306-360 (77.6 - 91.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock and 1 layer of Spikes
+2 252 SpA Tera Fighting Tornadus Focus Blast (120 BP) vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Assault Vest Goodra-Hisui: 356-422 (97.8 - 115.9%) -- 87.5% chance to OHKO
My beloved bug. This mon is just great overall, big number attacker, priority, pivot, and sometimes a semi-special wall. I tend to go with heavy slam over eq because while eq may have greater coverage against random mons, heavy slam allows us to deny gweezing as a switch in. Adamant and tera helps boost heavy slam damage even more (doing 85-99) to weezing and other threats while giving us an emergency psychic or fairy resist that can tank hits for a moment.
Everyone knows what this goat does, come in, eat hits, spread toxic, decent damage with eq, and most importantly for us set up spikes. Tera poison allows us to negate our 4x weakness to grass while making us immune to enemy toxic attempts. 8 speed is implemented to catch other quagsire or even slowbro trying to be sneaky.
Slept on mon imo, this guy is a great defensive wall. Palossand is great into most stealth rock leads, taking anything from kleavor and terrakion to lycanroc. Scorching sands and stealth rock is a great combination to either burn incoming physical attackers or to punish an enemy staying in. This mon also functions as our spin blocker, mamo, and barra check. Shadow ball is good coverage allowing us more means to hit jirachi and not be entirely walled by weezing.
Again a mon that everyone knows, spins, knocks, drops dracos, you get it.
Our secondary special wall, this fez set allows us to tank most things that cyclizar would not. Moonblast and U-turn are excellent at spreading status or allowing in big threats to steels who would be immune. Tera dark is something I like to run to give more security against a potential armarouge sweep, but it is optional and could be replaced with tera water or even ghost to help spinblock.

This team is centered around taking enemy attacks with two physical and special walls, and then finding moments to pivot into our strong damage dealers. Palossand and quagsire take on most physical threats in the tier by either burning or toxicing them, and don't share any weakness apart from grass surprisingly. Cyclizar and fez compliment eachother well typing wise, and give us both fast and slow pivots. Tornadus and slither wing help pivot eachother in and catch mons that would otherwise wall eachother.

This team (well with h-braviary over tornadus and pre-mamo (who is an issue for the team (and entire tier as a whole))) peaked with me at 1569 (RU maxxing 3)

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2319603696?p2 this match isn't something special in particular but just a good showcase as to how the team synergises together nicely.

 

[Lyra]

Specs Bee Offense
https://pokepast.es/b1829484a1d52cd1
​

After a break from RU, I decided to build with Choice Specs . A surprisingly dangerous mon, with a strong STAB Moonblast with it's excellent natural speed, beating RU speedsters such as Hisuian Zoroark and Maushold by a countrymile and even outspeeding Noivern. This great natural speed actually allows it to throw around its Specs Moonblasts much more easily than Specs Gardevoir. The Stealth Rock weakness is terrible but is circumventable(?). With a simple set of Moonblast, Bug Buzz and Psychic Noise, it threatens much of the tier, as a lot of popular Steel types don't actually switch into Bee, especially with Rocks cancelling Leftovers recovery. Other Moonblast resists such as Fezandipiti and Galarian Weezing are threatened by Psychic Noise. Switcheroo rounds out the moveset crippling steels and Chansey well. Sometimes even gaining HDB, allowing it to keep trucking. Some calcs to show Specs Bees threat level:

252 SpA Choice Specs Ribombee Moonblast vs. 144 HP / 0 SpD Empoleon: 93-110 (26.9 - 31.8%) -- 40.8% chance to 4HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Choice Specs Ribombee Moonblast vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Magnezone: 102-120 (36.2 - 42.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Ribombee Moonblast vs. 80 HP / 0 SpD Eviolite Bisharp: 168-198 (57.7 - 68%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Ribombee Moonblast vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Goodra-Hisui: 132-156 (36.2 - 42.8%) -- 96.3% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Choice Specs Ribombee Bug Buzz vs. 252 HP / 32 SpD Jirachi: 172-204 (42.5 - 50.4%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Choice Specs Ribombee Psychic Noise vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Fezandipiti: 164-194 (43.1 - 51%) -- 5.9% chance to 2HKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Ribombee Psychic Noise vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Weezing-Galar: 264-312 (79 - 93.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Empoleon being the only "real" Steel able to consistently come in is cool.

All of these get especially dicey with Spikes in the picture, which is where we get our second Pokemon, Klefki! Klefki is fast becoming one of my favourite mons, with it's excellent defensive profile, ability to set up on many grounds with just Magnet Rise. Though on this team it utilizes a set with Eject Button and Thief to disrupt teams, alongside it's ever trusty Spikes and yellow magic.
To keep the Spikes on the field, Golurk was chosen as the Stealth Rocker. It has a cool defensive profile and fulfills the job of being a RUPL mascot.
To further lock in the hazard stacking Galarian Zapdos and its Defiant step in...or fly in? Either way, it punishes defog particularly hard and loves the Spikes support as well (what doesn't). Its Throat Chop > Knock Off cuz Poltergeist.
Cyclizar here is its Boots set, tho AV also works, it allows the team win the Spikes war and spreads knock off on pokemon like Fezandipiti and Hisuian Goodra and Hippowdown and Gastrodon and whatever you get the gist.
Bisharp is cool cuz it threatens the zoro gap combo everyone is spamming, considering it resists their most spammable moves. Its tera fire here but Dark, Fairy and Flying all work here. Its also strong priority!

Mamoswine is incredibly annoying but u should be able to check it between Eject Button keys + offensive pressure. Its not been THAT bad 4 me.
Suicune is similarly threatening. Though perhaps easier to deal with cuz of its knock vulnerability and not having priority. Can make cycle av + facade to make dealing with it easier.
Enjoy the team!!!

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2321395190 vs stall
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2322323547 vs HO
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ru-2321391476 vs a more balance structure?

 

[FlamPoke]

Thank you to all of our participants the last two weeks, with RUPL just starting I tried to give us some more time and that helped us get some cool submissions! Please choose your two favorite teams below; voting ends Monday, March 24th at 8am GMT -6

Cookers + Payloaders by Sneakyplanner
Guardians + Protosynthesizers by Tubular
Payloaders + Protosynthesizers by mikejohns
Technicians + Hustlers by Elec-ant1234
Pranksters + Protosynthesizers + Chains by gooberclimbton3
Payloaders + Guardians by Lyra

My two votes go to Sneakyplanner (no Entei bias just a cool team...) and mikejohns because of the really cool SpikeStack team.

 

[Elec-ant1234]

Lowkey voting for goober's team for the cool idea, and lyra for being exceptionally late to the party

 

[gooberclimbton3]

Voting for sneaky because I like the idea of entei supported by hazards, Lyra for a nothing if not fun bee set and tech like thief on klefki. Do like seeing gallade on elec's team though but no third vote apparently.

 

[Lyra]

Voting for Lyra, and then gooberclimbton and Tubular :D

 

[Canard]

voting for elec-ant because HO and funni hilli set

 

[Rarelyme]

Sneaky because solid + pretty original and Elec-ant because I like the take on HO with Hilli and Gallade

 

[Tubular]

Voting for Sneaky and Lyra

 

[skylerddd]

Voting for Lyra and Sneaky