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Welcome to the SV ZU team dump thread! Usually team bazaar or dump thread's act as an alternative to sample teams because of the volatile nature of DLCs and tier shifts this generation. The criteria I'll be using is simple: if it's a good team and easy to pilot, it'll most likely be archived. However, I want to emphasize that meme teams or objectively bad teams will be rejected and I might delete posts that are especially bad.
Provide an import for your team(s)
Write a description of your team(s), preferably a short and concise explanation of how the team in question functions and its weaknesses (replays are highly encouraged)
Specify the type of team it is: offense, balance, semi-stall, stall, weather, etc
Must use sprites when showing a team rather than only having an import (for visual appeal and archive friendliness)
Just because this thread is relaxed does not mean meme teams or bad teams will be accepted. This thread is not a rate my team hub, use the ZU room on PS! or ZU's Discord for help
Sure! I'll make the first post! Gonna drop a couple teams that I've built for UMPL/Seasonal (click on sprites for paste).
Quilladin Hazard Stack -
This team has not been used in tournament play. I was looking for options for hazard stack. Our best defensive spikers at the moment are between Quilladin and Vespiquen, but I know I wanted to use Clefairy as my special wall so Quilladin ended up being the choice. They cover each others weaknesses quit nicely with their incredible stats and support movepools. I then went for a pivot squad of Frogadier (who is too good not to use right now) and Raboot who can pressure switches from teams after hazards are up. Stonjourner is still as strong as ever and works great for speed control. Pupitar is my Electric immune/wincon to clean up games after the opposing team gets chipped down by hazards and U-Turn damage.
Boots Offense -
I brought this team this past week in UMPL and won with it. Hazards are really solid right now and Glimmet being able to condense that role is super nice. Frogadier and Raboot were another choice for my pivot core, both working well off of each other to put pressure on their switch-ins. Eelektrik is a great momentum grab with its slow U-Turn and does well as a general wall for stuff like Stonjourner. Grumpig was my choice of speed control, helping with opposing Psychic-types and being faster than opposing Scarf Stonjourner. Ampharos is a nice pivot if you want to try to grab Static procs against U-Turn users like Lumineon, but acts better as a late game cleaner with its incredible Special Attack and access to Agility. This team really relies on you being able to pilot well by keeping momentum and figuring out your wincon early.
I hope some newcomers can use these teams to try and get an introduction to the tier. Feel free to put your own spin on them and have fun!
Sure! I'll make the first second post! Gonna drop a couple one teams that I've built for UMPL/Seasonal fun (click on sprites for paste).
Basic Boots Build
I designed this team to be as resilient to entry hazards as possible, because I think most removal is lowkey bad and a momentum sink. It is pretty straight forward too, Camerupt is the VoltImmune and SR setter for the team. I'm absolutely in love with the offensive Heavy-Duty Boots Eruption set. Tera grass to flip the weaknesses and still resist Electric if needed. Ampharos is a strong and slow bulky pivot, that threatens the metagame with its strong moves and hard to challenge Volt Switch. I like tera Fairy + Dazzling Gleam or tera Dragon + Dragon Pulse, both of which could work here. I also used to run Dragon Tail last to force more chip damage on special walls that take hazard chip. Static punishes contact moves. Clefairy is my special sponge, that can take on bulky pokemon that rely on passive damage to chip pokemon down, while supporting our own hazard game with its Knock Off. Encore is broken in SV, and I like tera Steel for its superb defensive profile. Stonjourner is the only pokemon that takes damage from entry hazards on this team, but it acts as speed control and wallbreaker with its high BP moves and great coverage. Tera Steel boosts Heavy Slam, which complements Stone Edge very nicely. Tera Ground can also be used. Frogadier is a hard to answer wallbreaker that can set up entry hazards and U-turn out of unfavorable matchups, with Protean shenanigans potentially catching opposing pokemon off-guard and boosting its coverage moves to basically being STABs. It can also act as natural speed control versus slower builds. Banette is the last pokemon and offers a Rapid Spin immunity and priority to revengekill more easily. Again, Knock Off is amazing in conjunction with laying hazards. I opted for Will-O-Wisp as a last move to catch Stonjourner and other physical attacker that try to switch in thinking they are save. Tera Dark to flip weaknesses and boost Knock Off's damage.
I hope some newcomers can use these teams to try and get an introduction to the tier. Feel free to put your own spin on them and have fun!
This is a quite standard offensive team consisting of Vullaby, my Psychic answer who also checks Banette and more importantly gives my team Defog which helps keep Stonjourner and Hakamo-o healthy to check threats like Squawkabilly and Stonjourner. It also acts as a pivot alongside Lumineon on this team which can synergize well due to how Vullaby can lure in Pokemon like Stonjourner, which it can pivot on and bring in Lumineon to threaten Stonjourner out. Squawkabily is this teams form of speed control with a Choice Scarf, being able to throw out strong Normal-type attacks in this meta is quite nice and thus made it a good cleaner lategame. Camerupt is my answer to Electric-types like Dedenne and Ampharos while being a great offensive threat itself, as its Fire/Ground STAB is very hard to switch into, especially when it is invested in. It also carries Stealth Rocks for my team, allowing my Stonjourner to run Heat Crash to hit Tera Steel Levitate Pokemon like Eelektross and Bronzor. Hakamo-o is one of the tiers most threatening setup sweepers, boasting a great defensive typing allowing it to check Pokemon like Stonjourner and then setup on them with Swords Dance + Scale Shot, with Drain Punch for recovery and a good ability in Bulletproof to block moves like Focus Blast once it has Terastallized and Shadow Ball from Gastly. Stonjourner is a great blanket check to physical attackers in the tier like Squawkabilly, Persian, and Vigoroth while also being a phenomenal breaker, as basically nothing wants to take its moves, especially when boosted with a Choice Band. Lumineon is the main answer to Water-types on this team and can use them for momentum with U-turn. Encore also gives me a way to stop Curse Sliggoo-Hisui and other setup sweepers in the tier.
Gonna post this here as I think its a pretty easy team for new players to use and pilot.
Vullby + Sliggoo H + Dunsparce just sounded like a good defensive core to start off with and it likely covers most if not all of the meta to some capacity. Scarf Grumpig cause I wanted speed control and trick scarf as an easy way to disrupt any sort of cheese. Lumineon was added for more speed control and encore / uturn utility and momentum. Monferno is the breaker and I wanted some more knock on the team. Sorry if the explanation was rather poor, but I think all of these mons are pretty easy to use and self explainable. Sets are standard you can opt for uturn > toxic on Vullaby but I think that toxic utility is pretty nice.
E: Also toto beat monai with it in UMPL as I slept through the game :x
reviving this thread with a bunch of teams featuring rotom-fan! im pretty sure the general consensus among the entire community is that it is busted and that it will be banned, so it would be a shame to see these all just sit in my builder and collect dust. and if by some miracle it stays legal, or if you want to try and bang out reqs on the final day of the suspect test and need teams, then i hope folks will find these useful!
will probably make a post in the np thread detailing some of my favorite sets and cores that ive been using recently, so keep an eye out! thats all for now, ping me on discord or in the zu room if you have any questions about the teams or the sets!
this meta is about to get nuked so might as well put this here
a bulky offense team built around funny servine contrary shenanigans. camerupt helps beat a lot of what smacks servine around such as tinkatuff and swalot, quaxwell serves as removal + completes the fwg core, indeedee is a hard-hitting scarfer, and swalot is the defensive glue. some problem mons for this team include combusken and magmortar, so play carefully around those. from my limited testing (dead ladder lol) it seems v solid.
I decided to dip my toes into ZU when the new year started and immediately saw Vulpix and Scovillain were allowed...
Pretty simple team based on the OU sun teams of old where you use eject button to get in your sun abusers with mbounce helping protect against hazards (even tho I still have scov boots which could definitely be changed). The main star of the team is definitely scov being able to find set up turns and theb proceed to 2HKO any swithin and OHKO almost anything with sun boosted Flamethrowers while giga drain keeps it healthy, and everyone else helps with having switchins to other stuff and sweeping at the same time. The main weakness I've found with this team is weirdly lead tinkatuff who kinda just ignores everything I can do because of knock and moldy twave/rocks (and weather ballin from Vulpix doesn't kill it just to lose heat rock)
just won circuit gonna post all my teams here
FYI a lot of these are outdated but the IDEAS are not so feel free to take some ideas from it for whatever tours u wanna try to use em in https://pokepast.es/dedfb3d75062f06e
https://pokepast.es/431fa56ad678b4c7
huge dump of teams I've built a lot out of boredom and laddered a lot out of boredom I think I'm top 4-5 on ladder or something but the meta has been pretty fun as nothing is too outright broken. I think bellossom and veluza could be looked at though. Teams closest to the top are most recent.
Some thoughts on a couple mons ig:
I really love using this mon in older gens but I cannot make it work its very unimpressive to me, Mixed LO has been the most fun to me.
I dont see this thing a lot but I think BU Resttalk with Tera Fairy and Play Rough is pretty fire, just gotta get rid of Orthworm and other shit but it can clean up games handily.
Has a pretty nice matchup into Pyroar and other random special attackers, idk if it just got Toxic but its pretty nice since not a lot of poisons are being ran.
Super cool both mixed and SD are nice at cleaning and breaking, Wind Rider is pretty cool allowing it to semi wall some birds like oricorio (running Hurricane) and Swanna.
Really fun and it picks up free wins on ladder with the CM Agility I think its legit and not much of a matchup fish.
Tera Dark boots is not only a good breaker but a cleaner Tera Dark with sucker can snowball pretty quick.
really good i think i like running Fire Blast Hyper Voice with Tera Ghost and boots a lot, speed tier is very good and Wisp + Taunt is great utility.
Definitely a top glue mon in the tier, but it can be easy to chip so its very easy to overwhelm
Love this guy Salt Cure is really good and Spdef is cool into a lot of mons, doesnt like hazards though
I think this mon is a bit controversial at the beginning I was pretty underwhelmed by it, but then people started running Spex and its really easy for it to just completely overwhelm its checks and counters. SD Trailblaze is a pretty nice mixup as well.
Top 5 mons in the meta imo, in no order (keep in mind I ladder a lot so it might not be too accurate):
Felt like posting smth but I'm too tired to have opinions, so I figured I'd share this goofy little stall team I made.
I was actually trying to see if subseed sceptile would work when making this team, but it needed a special wall and spinner more than a sceptile, which led to this version!
These 3 are the physical walls on the team. I have rarely had them broken through by a physical threat. Palossand can handle any fighting type that isn't running a grass move, Orthworm can switch into Qwilfishes and threaten an iron defense sweep while also being able to sponge physical hits, and Palossand gets fighting types that threaten the other two, with cloak to prevent Decid hax. Palo also spinblocks and doesn't really care about what else most spinners can hit it with. These 3 also have basically every hazard to make your opponents feel like they are stepping on legos.
most replacable mon on the team, prob with a trace porygon2 to improve the matchup v special threats named typhlosion. However, pressure stalling something like a draining kiss is something that I've had to resort to, so I can defend the cuno. Tera poison is to resist fighting in the off chance that you run into a fighting type with a grass move since I copied it from a team that lacked 3 dedicated phys checks, and I didn't change it because i haven't faced a mesprit yet.
This is that spinner and special wall that I mentioned sceptile not being lol. Tera dragon is the only way this team can defensively deal with a typhlosion, and it's prob the tera I pick most. The EVs outspeed non-scarf typhlosion while giving more to the spd. Speed is kept because wheee fast spin. I've felt like having cuno + Cryo is more like getting around species clause than doubling up on weaknesses, since these are prob 2 of the most capable special mon destroyers on a team that could really use a second one of them.
And finally, YOU DARE DEFOG himself. Thought a defog deterrent would be a good addition, but I faced defog zero times with this team lol. However, having a cleaner and knocker is pretty useful on a team that would totally leave something with 40% hp.
If you lose with this team, it's probably because the opponent's special attackers aren't walled by 2 ice types, so be aware of that. However, outside of Typhlosion, most of them are setup mons that can't do much against 64 freeze drys and 96 hazes anyways.
ZUPL teams i built. Some of the older weeks are outdated now, but go ahead and grab ideas. I think the zu builder is criminally underexplored in favor of "safe" teams that are about as mu fishy as cheese or weird. EVs aren't the same as real team but should give an idea.
w1
vs havocknight (W, W): - Dipplincuno. Very good team with speed, power, a lot of bulk, wincon and double phasing. Designed to withstand all kinds of cheese and not be passive which I think I succeeded at here. Hitmonchan def the weak link. Also used by Havock in w2 to win vs SK.
Mada vs asa (L) - Primeape spikes. Not sure why I thought this was ok to be brought, it was one of the "sample teams" I posted so my team had sth to test with but the team is pretty bad. Especially for that meta where scarf brux just outsped scarf rotom. Might be ok now but I still find defensive slash to be worthless garbage.
w2
Mada vs sufys (W): - Broken trio. Idea was simply that bruxish, zard and hecid are all broken so why not make a team with all 3 of them. I should've done this in more slots more often.
vs Danny (W): - Double dance Qwil. Danny haxes a lot so covert cloak on dudun, double dance qwil worked perfectly in game and brux was broken. Lurantis was a neat pick, I like it over physdef hecid as removal.
w3
vs Nunes (L, W, W): - Sky attack brav webs. I lost cause I had the wrong paste and couldn't kill sneasel with lugg LOL... I think this team is great and i got reqs with it with 1 loss and Nunes would later steal this and win 2 ZUPL games with it.
Baddy vs Leni (L): - just a generic spin on sun.
w4
vs Beraldo (L): - fsight farig. A cool team I built 5mins before my game. I was outplaying and would've won until all my momentum stopped when Decid was revealed to be wrong ability.
Baddy vs Avarice (L): - Diabolical paraflinch team. Sawsbuck can catch teams foregoing a normal immunity, which aren't always the most appealing builder choice. The team lost to specs typhlosion cause tera dragon was never clicked.
w5
Baddy vs ima (W): - Meteor beam ampha+throat spray dudun+eeveeto cramorant. This is one of my favorite teams I built. 4/6 mons have unconventional sets yet the team always worked wonders in test, and in game lead ampha killed 3 mons and left 2 crippled. Sand spit+endure is a bit tough but I found the sand chip is usually helpful.
Hiko vs Tuthur (W): - offensive cuno bird/normal spam voltturn. I found the cuno+dodrio core really deadly and easy to bring in and out. Copycat grafaiai worked out too and chips stuff for dodrio. The team is weak to Toxicroak/Sneasel-h to the point where I think tera poison might be right on cuno. However in game grafaiai was able to kill croak.
w6
Hiko vs Lax (W): - Triple hisui. Lugg+p2 are kinda like a skarmbliss core and blanket most of the meta. Fun team structure to build and unexplored by virtually any other team before this. Got lucky dodging scarf qwil gunk t1 in the game.
Baddy vs Bouff (L): - Same team as above but oriented towards hazard stacking. Baddy had sth else built for him but felt more comfortable with this. It kinda got farmed by fairy glastrier. Big lugg needs to be tera ghost or something.
w7
avarice vs Danny (W): - CB thwackey. It's a real threat. Most of the guys here appreciate a lil grassy terrain healing, wether it be to help with set up, or boost eruption or something. Still hate slash but with helmet+healing it's salvageable.
Baddy vs Taka (W): - Glast balance. Learned from w6 that fairy glast is broken and this team was pretty good into most things. Vika gave it some trouble in the game but from then on was smooth sailing as long as moves hit.
Hiko vs tko (W): - Catfish hazards offense. This team is pretty cool cause while it's offense it's much sturdier than a typical offense. Catfish is useful now without trode, although passive so red card is necessary, that item pairs nicely with stack anyway tho. Passi is the defog punish+knocker, zard is broken and bello is a neat wincon and water resist.
Mada vs Bloodace (W): - Originally specs venomoth>whims. I built this team in under 20 seconds because I didn't want havocknight to wait long between test games. But this did well in test vs multiple ppl. I thought whims would be a good call into bace but it ran into zard+orthworm. The game was rly goofy and I changed the sanda to a rhydon post games to have a real fire switch in.
had some PU burnout last week and decided to hop into ZU a bit. Made 2 very succesful and somewhat unique teams and since i don't plan on playing much ZU in the near future decided to share:
How to ZU
First team i built based on some idea i've seen ayo using in PU (Destiny Bond + Revival Blessing). In the end decided to drop a bit this idea in order to solidify the team (rotom over mismagius) and it's much more solid and balanced. Had some issues with Electrode-h so might be a bit better now. The last slot is the one i've struggled the most to find someone suitable, tried Snorlax, Mabosstiff, Hitmonlee and even Slaking for the memes, while they worked, Toucannon has proven to be the best fit and helped me on the lat run. I think it's current #3 with a pretty high win ratio. I'm also glad i haven't checked viability rankings prior, as you can notice, most of the squad sits low there.
goofy missile in ZU
I've made a pretty successful team in PU recently based on Custap Cramorant and decided to give it a try in PU also. HO is not very friendly there it seems but i managed to make something out of it, as i post it sits at #1 in the ladder. Basically you start the game avoiding hazards and distributing residual damage with Cramorant, hopefully also some status and then proceed to be aggressive with your glass cannons. Pretty fun to use. I particularly love this Dugtrio-a that ALWAYS put in some work and recommend everyone giving this hairy goofball a try.
UMPL IV team dump! I know my record isn't impressive, but big thanks to a fairy and Rasche for giving me a chance and believing in me the whole time anyway. Thank you also to the Sh(a)ymin as a whole for being insanely good at the video game and fun to interact with, and to big tony 2014, FlamPoke, and fish anemometer for the test games/insight. Not gonna spend too long on explanations (especially not for the unusable teams), but yeah enjoy.
Hadn't played much ZU after ZUPL ended for my team, so I wanted to load something safe against Toto. Flame Charge Charizard is the only standout thing here; it seemed like a good cleaner with all the ways this team can spread residual damage. This is when I learned Lanturn is terrible and banned it from all of my following teams.
This team is just a bunch of Pokemon I didn't use much until now, though the end result isn't super good. This is when I learned Charizard is terrible and banned it from all of my following teams.
I also made this for week two, but gulch was the one to bring it. Kinda wish we traded teams here because this one is like a way better version of what I ended up bringing. Choice Band Hisuian Decidueye is definitely outclassed by Hisuian Sneasel, but with paralysis support you kind of forget that. Defog Frosmoth is something I stole from PU that actually translates kind of okay to ZU, though it's definitely worse here.
Pretty simple hazard stacking build with some annoying VoltTurn to get Black Glasses Brute Bonnet in and break for Passimian and Mesprit. Poison Point in tandem with Tera Steel + Haze on Qwilfish was specifically to avoid losing to any setup Dudunsparce variant, Intimidate would probably have been more valuable overall but the snake was broken.
I wanted to use something different from my ordinary style of ZU building here, my teams until here felt pretty basic. Paraspam with multiple brokens to capitalize, most of all Dudunsparce. Despite having three Fighting checks and Tera Fairy on Dudunsparce, this team felt incredibly Fighting weak, so running into Bait's Fighting spam team was definitely a shock. I expected the game to go a lot worse for me, but thankfully Dudunsparce is broken and carried me.
Webs seemed interesting for dealing with Drip's more offensive teams, and this take on the playstyle was different from the Typhlosion team people (Drip included, I think) were using. I don't like this team much because it feels a bit too slow even for webs, but it won with a very fortunate turn 1, so I can't complain too much. It's also a pretty fun team imo.
FP and I agreed to Monotype ZU since our teams were both already in playoffs by now. I went with Ice because snow makes Glastrier and Frosmoth kinda broken, but I got a little unlucky in the actual game and lost.
The Mabosttiff lover finally uses Mabosttiff in tournament. The dog seemed great against all the defensive Mesprit that estra was bringing, and I figured it would get at least one in against their more passive builds. Past that, P2 and Weezing are Pokemon I never really use and wanted to give a try; suffice it to say, they put in overtime. tony was a huge help in coming up with this team, and he also stopped me from loading Rock Blast Orthworm here because I was scared estra would bring Oricorio vs me...
This team is terrible and was made in like two minutes. Choice Scarf Whimsicott and Defog Oricorio seemed like fun subversions, and Sneasel-H + Floatzel looked like a strong offensive core against a lot of FP's stuff, but it did not pan out at all.
Surprisingly, this team was made before Choice Scarf Decidueye-H was used in SCL and subsequently took over PU. This was the first thing I made when I was building for Toto, and it's... definitely a team. PyROAR aims to wear down grounded special walls in tandem with Spikes so that Jolteon can sweep. Tera Blast Rock on Hecidueye is for the obnoxious Fire-types, this guy gets no real Rock-type coverage. The idea of hazard stack + Roar popped up a lot in my builder, though I only brought in one actual game.
Bad, Virizion is awful.
Wouldn't bring this to anything serious, but Swords Dance Decid-H farmed me w1 and so I had to try it after that. Covert Cloak Palossand is something I believe Danny used in ZUPL, seemed like a fun idea for not losing to opposing Decid-H.
Pretty much the same team, but these were the rough drafts of what I brought against BaitWiz. More Swords Dance Decid-H, except this time it's SD + Roost because I believe GXE ran that in SCL and it seemed really cool with Tera Fire to dodge burns and potentially cheese Fires.
Woof woof.
The other webs team I made for the week I played Drip. Less good than the one I actually used, but still has some fun sets like Air Balloon SD Grafaiai, Muscle Band SD Hecid, and CM Roar Jolteon.
Choice Band Brute Bonnet + entry hazards. I don't use Snorlax ever, but TankLax is way better than Curse and didn't seem terrible against FP. OBB10 used a team similar to this against FP, though, and I grew less sure on Brutus after tony (the best ZU player ever) said it sucked.
tony suggested Choice Band Sneasel after Brute Bonnet disappointed, and that ended up being kind of boring to work with, so I went with something else: Protect + Leftovers Glastrier. The idea is that, in ZU, you rarely need to click SD with Glastrier to do anything and benefit more from just attacking most of the time. yo cho's experimented with Roar Glastrier before, but Protect seemed interesting for scouting what move stuff like Passimian clicks and staying healthy enough to trade all game. The Drifblim team was my first attempt at supporting the set, and the second one was what I came up with before concocting the awful actual finals team. Never EV'd Oricorio, but you can kind of EV it to do whatever you want really. Both teams looked inconsistent af, but they might work on ladder or something.
Probably not playing much ZU until the next team tour, so see you then :)
Heyo, just got done with UMPL and wanted to drop the teams I used and talk a bit about my opinions on the current metagame. TLDR I had a ton of fun and am thankful to have been drafted, it was getting kind of late in the draft and a lot of the ZU slots filled up so Imperial was a legend for actually picking me after I told them I'd beat Toto at the bare minimum LOL. Our team environment was great and we fell shy of the trophy but still had a ton of fun.
Hiding this because it isn't particularly pertinent to this thread, but wanted to say thanks to the handful of people who helped me with tests and stuff in UMPL, especially asaBaitWizBloodAceestraSputnikTHE_CHUNGLER and wooper, all of whom were gracious with test games and would yap a bit which was nice considering my team had zero support. I know I'd ping you all randomly if I saw you online and you were generally available to help so thanks.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9zu-794601
This is actually a team I had built in late ZUPL that I enjoyed a lot, using it a bunch on ladder and in room tours. This team was good enough (minus the Honchkrow slander) to get included in the first batch of samples and is still one of my favorite recent teams I've built, so I was happy to secure a win week one with it.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9zu-797217
OBB was one of my top two players in the tour and I wanted to use this game as a way to establish myself a bit... I decided to use some cheese after he cheesed me in ZU Seasonal a while back and really liked this slightly updated version of my ZUPL team. Got a tad lucky with some flinches but feel like I should have been favored even without them, though it obviously was much easier with some help early. Snorlax is a really cool mon that I feel like I don't use enough, especially on terrain teams, and this was my first real exposure to how much of a menace Brute Bonnet can be.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9zu-800203
DripLegend week, which again meant a non-ZU mainer, though I had suspected he was getting fed teams by fish. Loaded a balance team that I built kinda sorta right before the game after not really liking some of my funny ideas I had that week (Maranga Dudunsparce)... EQ on Passi was a last second change over Gunk and helped vs Dudunsparce, which was really nice. AV Clawitzer is still one of my favorite sets to use since it already hits so incredibly hard, and the core of Mabosstiff and Passimian is really nice.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9zu-802227
Toto... the other top two player in the pool. I wanted to be very good into any kind of structure and have plenty of breaking power, and kind of felt like Gloom would be deceptively good vs him because he used a fair amount of Hisuian Decidueye and Passimian. This week was good for obvious reasons but also kind of forced me to adapt as he loaded Poliwrath and Shaymin, as my team structures were getting a bit complacent... This was a fun week to not have another ZU player in my team though because any reasonable person would have made fun of the Gloom + SpD Oricorio idea and I would have lost using some standard team.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9zu-804725
Feen was, in my mind, definitely going to load some sort of offense so I went with a Brute Bonnet balance that got into a matchup vs Trick Room. This week also showed me how Mesprit and Regirock together form a core that is practically unbeatable if played well, so you'll see that more in the following weeks.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9zu-805061
My loss... this team was admittedly not that great and I was so annoyed at Grafaiai for being a bad mon here. I wanted to stray from my norm a bit vs BaitWiz and thought Grafaiai and Lanturn looked like a good pivot core to position my winners vs him, though both of my setup sweepers lost to some unfortunate events.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9zu-806961
Not much to say, asa and I had playoffs locked so we decided to load Monotype to be fun like she mentioned above. I went with Poison because I was convinced it was broken and she'd load Fighting, though she brought Ice. I have been preaching Venomoth as a really sneaky good mon and am still convinced that it works well, though I think you need to run mono Bug Buzz with Toxic last - this was more of a Dudunsparce tech but it probably still warrants usage.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9zu-807991
I missed my game vs Toto in Semifinals because of irl stuff that was very unfortunate, but I got my chance to play regardless as we went to tiebreak this week. Our team actually really wanted to not ZU because of how good Toto and avarice had been, but they picked it first and I was a pretty obvious choice because of my record (and our lack of ZU players..). I was incredibly surprised they picked avarice over Toto. I felt like the two times we played their team thus far we loaded VERY favorable matchups into him just to lose because of unfamiliarity with the tier, so I figured he would not load HO and instead load more of a bulky offense / offense type of team. Using this, I decided Specs Jolteon and Band Hisuian Sneasel were a really good core to build with, as they really make life miserable for offensive stuff because of their immediate power and Speed, and I thought a bulky Braviary could also be insanely good. All three picks paid off and I won a clean game, redeeming myself after feeling bad about missing my Semifinals game on short notice. This was the team I probably spent the least time on outside of my week three game and I still think it was really solid and submitted it to samples.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9zu-809410
Running it back vs asa for Finals, who did NOT agree to play Monotype again... I thought a ton about this matchup and felt like an offensive core of Vikavolt as webs support plus two Swords Dance mons in Hisuian Qwilfish and Virizion would be very good given her overall weakness to Bug and Grass and only using Defog for removal thus far. I got a pretty nice matchup and played cleanly in my opinion. I had mentioned in ZU Discord how my last Mesprit in tiebreak was Healing Wish so loading it again was a bit greedy, though it just provided so much upside to give any of my setup mons another life. This was a really, really solid offense team to me and I was really happy with my prep and play this week vs one of the strongest opponents in the pool.
I want to speak a little bit about my opinions on the current metagame while I'm here, and I'll also do similar to asa and drop some other teams I didn't use or passed to my teammates. Overall I was really happy with the meta during this tour, I think Dudunsparce was a really good mon and could offer a ton of healthy elements, though I agree with its ban because of how insane it could be as well as an unstoppable setup monster. Even with Dudunsparce around I think the tier was healthy and all styles of teams were viable. I think the current VR could be overhauled quite a bit, as you'll notice the only Fire-type I brought was a defensive Oricorio - building with either Charizard or Typhlosion felt really bad to me this tour and I think they're not quite as good as they used to be. My 7/9 Mesprit usage speaks to who I think is truly the #1 mon in the tier, especially since I never dipped into the offensive sets that I also think are quite potent. My opinion on Hisuian Decidueye fell a bit throughout the tour, I still think utility sets are better than offensive and it's a good mon, but I had so many other things I wanted to use and try and Virizion was a really easy choice over it because of its Speed in my Finals game. Hisuian Sneasel is one of my favorite clickers in the tier, up there with Floatzel and Passimian as the best Choice mons for a team. I think losing Cramorant will be the biggest annoyance next month, as it really does so much for a team and can make so much progress in every matchup. I won't be in circuit playoffs (sobbing) but will probably still be active as a builder, so anyone who wants a sponsor or test games is free to hit me up whenever!
This team was used in our Finals week as well, with Kata losing because of her unfamiliarity with Swalot's game. I think this was a really cool team and used something I had been wanting to fit on a team all tour, Nasty Plot Alolan Persian. This felt so good into offense which we expected Ampha to load, and probably could have won if we used Regirock and our Tera more aggressively.
We loaded this vs avarice in Semifinals and unfortunately lost because we gave up a ton of progress early making some misplays, along with some pretty bad luck overall. I don't think stall is a great team style in this meta but this team felt really nice to pilot and had a lot of resources that could keep up with any offensive structure.
A really solid team with a great defensive core that enjoyed double Choice item Trick support. I liked this vs avarice too, we just let a lot of our momentum die when Hisuian Sneasel was given up early.
Like mentioned above, I had some stuff come up during Semifinals week so my prep was pretty poor and I missed my game anyway. Felt like this was a really out of the norm team structure for me and would do well vs Toto, though our sub decided to use stall instead.
My last team to drop, this was something I built in the middle of the tour and tried to revamp for Finals but never liked it enough to bring it. I never got around to using Glastrier and wanted to so badly but it was just a bit too tricky for me overall, though the bulky Rotom idea still seems solid.