SM UU Stack and Smack Mega Sharpedo

[RandomKrud]

First we stack, then we smack​

The plan here is to whittle down the enemy team with hazards and offensive threats until we can bring in the shark to do shark things and win.

Sharpedo @ Sharpedonite
Ability: Speed Boost
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Protect
- Crunch
- Ice Fang
- Psychic Fangs
​

So having this mon on your basically makes you fight 5v6, but your win condition changes from "KO 6 enemy pokemon" to "get everything in kill range for shark and get rid of priority users." We can take 1 boosted/banded Scizor BP, but that's about it. Honestly half the struggle with this team is getting the 40-ish percent we need on scizor for us to win (252 Atk Strong Jaw Sharpedo-Mega Crunch vs. 244 HP / 148 Def Scizor: 178-211 (52 - 61.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO ). Scouting for scarfers is also necessary because 1 speed boost is not enough against most of them.

Krookodile @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Knock Off
- Taunt
​

I chose Krook as our rocker over mamo because I appreciate having taunt, and having Knock on this mon lets me comfortably run pursuit on scizor. I've been running helmet over scarf for more residual damage, but I'm thinking of switching to scarf to outspeed crucial u-turners. I'm not super sold on him but the team appreciates the intimidate and the offensive pressure.

Scizor @ Choice Band
Ability: Technician
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 Spe
Adamant Nature
- U-turn
- Bullet Punch
- Pursuit
- Superpower
​

Scizor because it's the best mon in the tier we want U-turn to keep up momentum. Choice band because we don't need to stay in much, I'd rather just hit things really hard to open the door for our other sweepers. 8 Speed Evs to speed creep other 4 EV scizors, but I'm not sure if that's the right play because slow u-turn is nice sometimes, if someone could give me advice there I'd appreciate it. Pursuit is so we can switch into Lati's draco and trap it, and we scare off other psychic types enough that I'd rather run it over knock.

Tentacruel @ Black Sludge
Ability: Clear Body
EVs: 252 HP / 240 Def / 16 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Toxic Spikes
- Rapid Spin
- Scald
- Sludge Wave
​

Tent was originally here just for t-spikes, but honestly t-spikes kinda suck against most teams. There's so many poision/steel/flying/levitate pokemon in the tier rn that I find the move useless against 3-4 mons pretty frequently. Still, it can force switches and defogs which can give us tempo, so it's not terrible--even poisoning 1 or 2 mons is super valuable for us. I used to run haze but I found myself never clicking it, a poison move is much more appreciated on this team. Sludge wave over sludge bomb because otherwise we're usually walled by chesnaught. Really though, I'm just running this because it has rapid spin and I don't think Starmie would fit the team since it would be a 4th bug weakness in a tier where scizor is the best mon u-turn is prevalent.

Latias @ Dragonium Z
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Roost
- Draco Meteor
- Psyshock
- Calm Mind
​

Lati is here to punch holes in walls and outspeed most non-scarfers, and also to provide a secondary win-con. I ran hp-fire for a long long time before realizing I was never clicking it because people don't leave their scizors in against this thing. A lot of teams just can't deal with this set without losing 1-2 mons. Psycshock over psychic because I hate Blissey.

Chesnaught @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Bulletproof
EVs: 244 HP / 252 Def / 12 Spe
Impish Nature
- Spikes
- Spiky Shield
- Wood Hammer
- Leech Seed
​

Ches is our physical tank and our spiker. The idea here is that we need all the hazards we can get to wear stuff down for shark and scizor. However... I find myself never having the time to spike up that often with him. Most defoggers in the tier can 1v1 him so it's difficult to keep spikes up. He's a fine defensive pivot though and he does his job well enough. I feel like he could be replaced but I tried Klefki and it was even more useless.

Conclusion​

I peaked at around 1500 with this team. This team is really good at tearing through teams that don't have a specific mega shark answer, and even then it has enough offensive pressure to beat most balance teams. I've only played vs stall once or twice so I can't speak to the matchup well but I think banded scizor is enough to make it advantageous for us. Half the team being weak to u-turn is definitely the biggest hurdle IMO. Weird stuff like talonflame gives us trouble but otherwise this has answers for the relevant UU threats. My guess is that this will be more difficult to pilot the higher you get on ladder because people will get smarter about playing around the shark wincon, but this blasts through low ladder well.

Importable

Sharpedo @ Sharpedonite
Ability: Speed Boost
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Protect
- Crunch
- Ice Fang
- Psychic Fangs

Scizor @ Choice Band
Ability: Technician
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 Spe
Adamant Nature
- U-turn
- Bullet Punch
- Pursuit
- Superpower

Tentacruel @ Black Sludge
Ability: Clear Body
EVs: 252 HP / 240 Def / 16 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Toxic Spikes
- Rapid Spin
- Scald
- Sludge Wave

Latias @ Dragonium Z
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Roost
- Draco Meteor
- Psyshock
- Calm Mind

Chesnaught @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Bulletproof
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 244 HP / 252 Def / 12 Spe
Impish Nature
- Spikes
- Spiky Shield
- Wood Hammer
- Leech Seed

Krookodile @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Knock Off
- Taunt

 

[RandomKrud]

Bumping this, any input on tent/ches/krook would be appreciated, I'm not sure if they do enough work currently.

 

[Sickist]

After a literal month, I finally got to this. Curse you school, and sorry this took WAY too long, so here's your long overdue rate:

That's your original team. When I first looked at this, the main thing that stood out was Chesnaught, due to how out of place it looks. After diving deeper into the team itself, I determined that your team was having a playstyle crisis. Sharpedo+Spikes suggested Spikestack BO or HO, while the Chesnaught+really fat Tentacruel suggested some weird SM balance team. Another thing I noticed is that your team is complete Hydreigon food, due to the lack of an answer for it. I tried to address these issues while simultaneously attempting to keep the main structure of the team. So that's how we got to the following changes:

Major Changes:

-->

Klefki is one of Mega Sharpedo's best friends. After all, the 2 do form one of the most memorable spikestack cores of this generation. Anyways, besides that, Klefki gives you a Fairy type, which is key to combating most Hydreigon variants, although you need to really watch out for Specs and Scarf Hydreigon, which carry Fire Blast, as well as random Z Earth Power Hydreigons. Klefki also provides Spikes, same as Chesnaught, while also providing Speed Control with Thunder Wave, as well as wearing down most bulky pokemon that Sharpedo needs help to break down, with Toxic.

-->

Speaking of Chesnaught, it was the weak link here by a mile. It felt awkward here, and is the leading factor on the evershifting playstyle of this team. With Klefki now providing Spikes support, Chesnaught was not really needed. What was needed however, was a Scizor check other then Tentacruel, who would be tremendously overworked otherwise. I settled on Cobalion due to it being able to handle Quick Attack, Knock Off, and Bug Bite variants of Scizor, while Tentacruel can handle Superpower variants. Cobalion also gives the team a breaker, allowing it to break Blissey, and make the stall matchup a lot better. Cobalion carries Stealth Rocks as well, which is of note.

Minor Changes:

: Adamant --> Jolly, Psychic Fangs --> Earthquake

While the power that Adamant provides is nice, Adamant also misses out on Scarf Hydreigon at +1, which for this team is specifically annoying due to Klefki being the team's main check. Jolly lets you outrun Scarf Hydreigon at +1 Speed, allowing you to Ice Fang it for the KO most of the time. Psychic Fangs, while nice for nailing Amoonguss and breaking Screens, kinda takes a sideline compared to the importance of nailing the likes of Klefki, Empoleon, and Cobalion, which all can usually take several hits from Sharpedo and KO it or cripple it in some form, via Status or just knocking it out in Cobalion's case. That's why Earthquake is better then Psychic Fangs in the moveslot for this team, and better overall in my opinion.

: EV Spread Change, Move Change

The team is kinda Moltres and Krookidile weak, so I ev'd Tentacruel to outrun rocks Krookidile, which also outruns Moltres, which greatly improves the matchup vs them. I also changed the Nature to Timid to get more speed to reach that benchmark. I changed Sludge Wave to Sludge Bomb due to the Poison Chance on things like Primarina. I also switched Toxic Spikes, which are borderline useless in this metagame, to Haze, to help combat SD Scizor/Cobalion/Infernape better.

: Rocks --> Scarf

This team needed Speed Control. Faster threats like Terrakion stepped on the team, (it still kinda does, but you can at least offensively pressure it with the new version), which is never ideal for any team. With Cobalion now carrying Rocks, Krookidile was free to run a Choice Scarf set, giving the team effective Speed Control for the most part. You do need to be careful, due to how any of Krookidile's moves are punishable due to locking itself into one of them. Just be weary of bringing Krook in and clicking something that might give Free turns to the wrong pokemon.

Importable:

Click the Sprites for the importable with the changes. Sorry for how long this took, and I hope you enjoy this new version.

 

[Dolphine]

Hey! I just looked over your team, and you seem to have done a pretty decent job. Here are some changes I would implement to this build.

I definitely do think that there can be some tweaks made to accomplish the goal of this team. Which as you mentioned was to whittle down with
threats with spikes and use offensive mons. The archetype that your looks looks to be is Hyper Offensive - A build which consists of heavily offensive mons like hazard stacking to win the game.

We will first start off with the major changes to this team, ones that will create a big impact in the overall functioning of the team but will help it to the goal of Hyper Offense.

Major Changes:

——— >

Chesnauaght as an awkward place on the team. As you mentioned, it loses to many defoggers in the tier and status such as toxic limit its physical capabilities. Losing to defog will also give opposing mons free Defog which removes your Krook’s rocks. One of the first things I saw with the build was the vulnerability to Draco Meteor. Primarina is also a good option as it can rest off status and damage but still be able to hit with sleep talk. Primarina helps out with the matchup against Lati and Hydreigon, especially as a Choice Band Scizor will not like switching in to full power Draco, and will easily get weakened. Primarina definitely takes the pressure off that and can also help make you not lose to Lucario and Infernape at the same time, which in-fact may be worth trading in order for Shark to get through. Primarina can also get valuable Scald burns on fat mons like Amoonguss and Empoleon which can help out shark for breaking later. This can also help deal with Mamoswine which most offensive teams are weak to.

+ ———> +


This was a big change, but team definitely could use a better matchup vs fairies in the tier. This is important because Shark does not appreciate healthy fairies which can live a hit and OHKO it with a stab fairy move. Most fairies are fairly bulky and rely on recovery and cleric moves such as Aromatherapy and Heal Bell. Latias alone isn’t enough as it cannot reliably switch in, and Tentacruel, despite being a poison, will never deal enough damage to be able to effectively take on fairies in the tier. Tentacruel also doesn’t fit into the team as it offers little to no offensive momentum and solely provides rapid spin and more hazards. However, most HO teams do not have hazard control, unlike BO (Bulky Offense) or Balance teams. Pokemon like Tentacruel are very passive and drain momentum in offensive teams. This offensive core between Scarf Hydreigon and Sheer force Nidoking works very well. Hydreigon lures in the fairies to use U - Turn, and Nidoking can come to use Sub and bust holes to the opposing side, which is what offensive teams are geared to do.

Here are the minor changes, ones that are small tweaks that may not seem like much but are still effective and can still make influences on play.

Minor Changes:

Krookodile - Rocky Helmet ———> Groundium Z
Rocky Helmet is used on more defensive mons with reliable recovery, or pokemon known for defensives niches such as Coballion. Krookodile, however, doesn’t find much of a use with Rocky Helmet on a offensive build. But Groundium Z can be used after rocks to get some big damage off on mons like Primarina, Amoonguss, Fat Fairies, Hippowdon, etc. This is far more valuable than unreliable chip, and these damages can be what Shark exactly needs in the late game.

Sharpedo - Psychic Fangs ———> Earthquake
Psychic Fangs is a pretty standard shark set, but Earthquake would work out better. This team doesn’t really appreciate Bisharp, as Hydreigon and maybe Krookodile (only at neutral), and Psychic Fangs/Crunch/Ice Fang does not hit Bisharp very hard. Earthquake also hits Coballion, Crawdaunt and Klefki, mons which Sharpedo would appreciate taking out and not be killed.

That will be it for my rating on this team! Overall, very well done and great job with your idea of Krook and an offensive team with Sharpedo. I just made a couple of changes to make your team function more more like intended and to unlock more out of Sharpedo. I hope you enjoy these changes and provides a positive influence. Feel free to shoot me a pm if you have any inquires.

New importable: https://pokepast.es/8bc70c64a6c304ff