TABLE_OF_CONTENTS
- preface
- team development
- the team
- detailed analysis
- gardevoir
- latios
- keldeo
- greninja
- heatran
- bisharp
- another perspective
- postface
- importable
- threatlists
"welcome to the dungeonmaster's guide. within this reference work lie the keys to a universe bound only by the limits of human creativity and imagination. it contains everything necessary to create adventures and sophisticated campaigns that blur the fine line between simulation and reality.
the dungeonmaster's guide is a complete and detailed system that will ready you for the demanding challenges that lie ahead. listen closely, and prepare to unlock the sound of pure drum n bass fantasy. this is the world of advanced dnb..."
yea, i could not resist using the prologue of the dungeonmaster's guide to open up this rmt. anyways, hi, i'm trinitrotoluene, that one dnb fan and hyper offense enthusiast from the competitive tutoring room on ps! that happens to know a thing or two about team rating and tutoring. with my appointment as one of the room owners of pokemon showdown!'s competitive tutoring room and the impending release of pokémon omega ruby and alpha sapphire in less than a month's time, i think now is as good a time as any to release my favorite xy ou team. i've been using this team (or variants of it) ever since since the mawilite was banned from ou, and for the most part, it's been fairly consistent. while it hasn't achieved much tournaments-wise, it's been fairly consistent in keeping my main (which i use to test teams on ladder) at a modest position on the ps! ou ladder, and as a bonus, it's fun for me to use because it contains a lot of my favorite pokemon and fits my main game philosophy: hit fast and hard before your opponent gets a leg up on you. while the games i've logged with this team or another variant don't always end up being this way (thanks to me being unlucky and bad at mons), plenty of them end up as such, which is always nice.
as i alluded to in the previous paragraph, this team very much is an offense team. while it primarily focuses on beating the opposing team down with special attacking power to the point where mega gardevoir can sweep w/ its powerful attacks, the team is flexible enough where i don't have to rely only on mega gardevoir to pull victories. literally every member of the team can clean up when given the opportunity to do so, which makes it easy to determine a win condition and move from there. as a brief overview, this team simply is heavy offense taken to its logical conclusion in the special side of things using four of the best special attackers in ou (which form psychic spam and water spam cores), with a collective intent to overwhelm the opponent with specially-based barrages until their one or two special walls crumble, allowing another team member to come in and clean up the mess. bisharp and heatran, as well as spikes support from greninja, are used to aid this effort.
now for a bit of flavor. there used to be an old custom in rmt where people would name their teams after music albums. just like how my fren Mulligan did in his dpp ou rmt hell's paradise, i'm doing the same here by naming this rmt after the dungeonmaster’s guide, a 70 minute dnb compilation that dieselboy released in 2004 backed with hm1: rise of the humans. both of them combined form one of my favorite dnb albums of all time because it packs so much energy and bass impact that hit hard and keep you going for the full 70 minutes. you can listen to this compilation on youtube by clicking the opening banner. remember to set the video quality to hd if you want maximum bass impact! granted, some of you may not like the fast and dark drum n bass that comprise the entirety of this compilation, but the energy behind the tracks in this album perfectly reflects how this team and i tend to play (assuming i'm not choking and / or getting haxed). with all that said, let's get to the rest of the rmt.
the dungeonmaster's guide is a complete and detailed system that will ready you for the demanding challenges that lie ahead. listen closely, and prepare to unlock the sound of pure drum n bass fantasy. this is the world of advanced dnb..."
yea, i could not resist using the prologue of the dungeonmaster's guide to open up this rmt. anyways, hi, i'm trinitrotoluene, that one dnb fan and hyper offense enthusiast from the competitive tutoring room on ps! that happens to know a thing or two about team rating and tutoring. with my appointment as one of the room owners of pokemon showdown!'s competitive tutoring room and the impending release of pokémon omega ruby and alpha sapphire in less than a month's time, i think now is as good a time as any to release my favorite xy ou team. i've been using this team (or variants of it) ever since since the mawilite was banned from ou, and for the most part, it's been fairly consistent. while it hasn't achieved much tournaments-wise, it's been fairly consistent in keeping my main (which i use to test teams on ladder) at a modest position on the ps! ou ladder, and as a bonus, it's fun for me to use because it contains a lot of my favorite pokemon and fits my main game philosophy: hit fast and hard before your opponent gets a leg up on you. while the games i've logged with this team or another variant don't always end up being this way (thanks to me being unlucky and bad at mons), plenty of them end up as such, which is always nice.
as i alluded to in the previous paragraph, this team very much is an offense team. while it primarily focuses on beating the opposing team down with special attacking power to the point where mega gardevoir can sweep w/ its powerful attacks, the team is flexible enough where i don't have to rely only on mega gardevoir to pull victories. literally every member of the team can clean up when given the opportunity to do so, which makes it easy to determine a win condition and move from there. as a brief overview, this team simply is heavy offense taken to its logical conclusion in the special side of things using four of the best special attackers in ou (which form psychic spam and water spam cores), with a collective intent to overwhelm the opponent with specially-based barrages until their one or two special walls crumble, allowing another team member to come in and clean up the mess. bisharp and heatran, as well as spikes support from greninja, are used to aid this effort.
now for a bit of flavor. there used to be an old custom in rmt where people would name their teams after music albums. just like how my fren Mulligan did in his dpp ou rmt hell's paradise, i'm doing the same here by naming this rmt after the dungeonmaster’s guide, a 70 minute dnb compilation that dieselboy released in 2004 backed with hm1: rise of the humans. both of them combined form one of my favorite dnb albums of all time because it packs so much energy and bass impact that hit hard and keep you going for the full 70 minutes. you can listen to this compilation on youtube by clicking the opening banner. remember to set the video quality to hd if you want maximum bass impact! granted, some of you may not like the fast and dark drum n bass that comprise the entirety of this compilation, but the energy behind the tracks in this album perfectly reflects how this team and i tend to play (assuming i'm not choking and / or getting haxed). with all that said, let's get to the rest of the rmt.
TEAM_DEVELOPMENT
the aegislash and mawilite bans opened up opportunities for previously overshadowed pokemon to shine in ou. the most notable mons this ban affected were mega gardevoir, mega heracross, and mega medicham, each of them (in)famous for their wallbreaking capabilities. of these three megas, i chose to focus on mega gardevoir because mostly everyone else was focused on mega heracross, causing the metagame at that time to become more physically oriented, which was good because there were fewer and fewer threats that could handle a special onslaught back then.
while mega gardevoir is an extremely powerful wallbreaker (thank you pixilate hyper voice) that few mons can stand up to does have a few pokemon that tend to do an effective job at checking her, such as chansey, jirachi, cresselia, and mega scizor. while bisharp doesn't help as much against mega scizor, it does help weaken chansey, cresselia, and jirachi to the point where mega gardevoir can barrel through them after some residual damage has been applied to them. the popularity of the double intimidate voltturn core (scarf landoge + mega manectric) at the moment only helps bisharp's case.
now i wanted a nice n clean solution to the mega scizor problem. while i normally would go w/ keldeo for this, i didn't like how keldeo lacked a reliable ice-type move besides icy wind and how azumarill, a massive threat to the team, forced keldeo out at little to no cost. to counteract this, i instead went for greninja as my mega scizor answer. having greninja on the team also gives me a great way to constantly keep pressure up against opposing offense, and if i opted to use spikes over a coverage move, it would make stall's time against this team even more miserable.
anyways, strong electric-types (and megazard-y) were a bit of a threat to the team as it was, so having a resist that can reliably switch into and take them on while maintaining the flow of the team was something i wanted to have next. to (hopefully) nobody's surprise, one of the best pokemon in ou at the moment fit the bill, hence my adding it to the team.
i still needed a source of sneaky pebbles, if only to add passive damages and make it even harder to switch against the team. because of all the offensive pressure this team exerted, garchomp was a shoo-in. as a bonus, it serves as an effective way of capturing momentum at the start of the match, which is always helpful.
talonflame made this team uncomfortable, so i decided to replace garchomp with heatran to hinder its efforts all while providing the same sneaky pebbles support garchomp did. this change also has the benefit of adding even more special offense to the team.
THE_TEAM
DETAILED_ANALYSIS
nota bene: spa = special attack, spd = special defense, spe = speed
| trace => pixilate ** you must follow
timid | 24 def / 232 spa / 252 spe
ivs: 0 atk
• hyper voice | stab move 1, click this and watch mons take copious amounts of damage
• psyshock | stab move 2, hits mons that could otherwise tank hyper voice hard
• focus blast | fuk ferrothorn and heatran
• taunt | fuk stall teams
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| levitate ** flight 643
timid | 252 spa / 12 spd / 244 spe
ivs: 29 hp / 0 atk / 30 spa / 30 spe
• draco meteor | the dragon-type equivalent to a nuke
• psyshock | a consistent stab move that actually does more than tickle chansey
• hidden power fire | fuk ferrothorn and scizor
• roost | recovery options on powerful offensive mons are never bad :]
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| justified ** accelerate
timid | 4 def / 252 spa / 252 spe
ivs: 1 atk / 30 spa
• hydro pump | stronk stab move; use this later on to conserve pp and minimize the chances of a miss screwing you over
• scald | a consistent stab move that burns 30% of the time, every time
• secret sword | another consistent stab that screws some special walls over
• hidden power electric | fuk dragon dance gyarados
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| protean ** white
timid | 252 spa / 4 spd / 252 spe
ivs: 25 hp / 0 atk
• hydro pump | greninja's strongest move; click this if the mon in front of you absolutely needs to die
• ice beam | the "safe" move; use this if you need a strong move w/ 100% accuracy
• grass knot | click this if you don't want to become complete azumarill and gyarados bait
• spikes | the not-innovation is here to exploit greninja's slower, moreshitass passive switch-ins
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| flash fire ** soul on fire
timid | 12 hp / 252 spa / 244 spe
ivs: 0 atk
• sneaky pebbles | do i really need to explain this?
• fire blast | stronk stab that smacks lots of mons up
• taunt | fuk stall teams
• toxic | an interesting option that puts many mons on a timer
/
| defiant ** take me away
adamant | 192 hp / 220 atk / 96 spe
• sucker punch | stab + priority + mindgames part 1
• knock off | semi-reliable stab that cripples everything that isn't a mega evolution or lacking an item already for free
• pursuit | mindgames part 2; weakens lots of mons for the rest of the team
• iron head | reliable stab that keeps slower faeries in check
ANOTHER_PERSPECTIVE___-
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gardevoir @
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timid | 24 def / 232 spa / 252 spe
ivs: 0 atk
• hyper voice | stab move 1, click this and watch mons take copious amounts of damage
• psyshock | stab move 2, hits mons that could otherwise tank hyper voice hard
• focus blast | fuk ferrothorn and heatran
• taunt | fuk stall teams
- overview:
as of now, with aegislash and the mawilite banned, mega gardevoir is one of the best mega evolutions legal in ou. she also happens to be another one of my favorite mega evolutions because of her design and sheer power. the deadly combo of pixilate and hyper voice makes it extremely difficult for the opponent to switch against her unless said pokemon has a resistance to her stab moves or is an eviolite chansey. cursory info aside, mega gardevoir, the first of five special nukes on this team, is the team's first stallbreaker, with an am to weaken the opponent's team so one of her weaker teammates can clean up without a hitch and provide free switch-in opportunities with her rather great psychic / fairy typing. she also forms a potent psychic spam core with latios and acts as a pivot to give her frailer teammates more switch-in opportunities. the given evs maximze mega gardevoir's speed, with the defense evs there to help avoid the 2hko from life orb latios's psyshock, and the leftover evs going into special attack to intensify mega gardevoir's damage output; a timid nature sees use over a modest nature because i like having mega gardevoir act as an emergency sand rush excadrill and swift swim sweeper check. speaking of abilities, trace is the preferred ability on gardevoir's base forme for reasons i will expand on in the "in-depth analysis" section below. the ivs minimize potential foul play and confusion damages, as is standard of all special attackers that i use.
彡彡彡彡彡 - in-depth analysis:
in general, mega gardevoir acts as one of the team's main wincons against bulkier teams. their tendency to lack strong threats that are faster than mega gardevoir is a trend that works in her favor. as a result, finding opportunities to mega evolve against such teams becomes a much easier task than against offense. such opportunities tend to pop up when mega gardevoir is up against the lati twins (they're not just on offense), mandibuzz, mew, slowbro, and zapdos. thanks to her ability to mega evolve against such targets and her access to taunt, i find her to be rather helpful (though not as necessary as bisharp) in keeping the team's hazards up. once gardevoir has mega evolved against such teams, the game can be simplified to one of 2 options: click hyper voice to see mons take damage, or taunt against walls / hazard setters. switching is only a necessity if the opponent has a revenge killer that can semi-reliably ohko mega gardevoir (see: mega scizor, landorus-t, garchomp, terrakion), and even then, i will sometimes leave mega gardevoir in if i don't feel that it's necessary to secure the victory. mega gardevoir generally works the same against offense, except i'll exploit her typing and trace to generate switch-in opportunities to a greater extent than i would against balance and stall.
team preview is an extremely important part of using trace effectively. if i see a mon whose ability i can exploit with trace, i'll usually wait until later on to mega evolve gardevoir. for instance, if i see that my opponent is using excadrill sand offense, i'll save gardevoir's mega evolution for after i trace the excadrill's sand rush and ko it (just pray that focus blast doesn't focus miss). the same applies against rain offense and their swift swimmers. in the latter case, remember that timid gardevoir actually outpaces the most common swift swimmers and can threaten the ohko on most of them with focus blast (or pixilate hyper voice for kingdra). this makes the weather offense match-up much easier for the team to handle. another fun example is if i see that my opponent is using a mega manectric. since mega manectric tends to use lightning rod as its base forme's ability, this creates a rather large opportunity to switch mega gardevoir in, potentially secure a special attack boost, and force the switch-out. if i happen to get the lightning rod boost, then that makes the situation even worse for the opponent. now, if my opponent has no pokemon that contain easily exploitable abilities, i'll waste no time in mega evolving gardevoir.
team preview also comes in handy when forming methods around my opponent's possible mega gardevoir responses. if my opponent is running a genger on his / her team, i'll bring gardevoir in on something it can force out (see: breloom, latios, the aforementioned mons w/ exploitable abilities) and use psyshock on the predicted genger switch-in. should none of these cases be present, i'll mega evolve gardevoir as soon as possible. notable targets across offense that gardevoir can exploit for a free mega switch-in and mega evolution opportunity are breloom, cube (for the unaware, this is my affectionate nickname for kyurem-b), mega heracross, keldeo, the lati twins, rotom-w, and the mons i mentioned in the previous paragraph. once gardevoir is on the field and mega evolved, it's just a matter of clicking hyper voice and watching things take damage, switching only when absolutely necessary.
彡彡彡彡彡 - alternative options:
there are a few options not mentioned previously that could work well over the given moves. as an example, you can use substitute over focus blast and calm mind over taunt if you really want to give hell to certain stall and offense. just note that your coverage against steels will suffer quite a bit. on that same note, if you really hate heatran, jirachi, and victini coming in almost effortlessly, hidden power ground is another move that you can use over focus blast. just note that focus blast does just as much against the primary targets hp ground is intended for (heatran, jirachi) while doing more to the likes of ferrothorn and mega scizor. modest over timid is an option if you think having more power is better than having more speed, but losing the ability to revenge kill kabutops, kingdra, and excadrill is never worth it in my opinion.
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latios @
timid | 252 spa / 12 spd / 244 spe
ivs: 29 hp / 0 atk / 30 spa / 30 spe
• draco meteor | the dragon-type equivalent to a nuke
• psyshock | a consistent stab move that actually does more than tickle chansey
• hidden power fire | fuk ferrothorn and scizor
• roost | recovery options on powerful offensive mons are never bad :]
- overview:
sometimes, the best form of offense is to stack pokemon with similar power and / or offensive coverage so they can overload the opponent's one or two answers to them. in this team, there are two cores that work in such a manner, and latios is a key part of one of them. latios forms a potent psychic spam core with mega gardevoir where the two of them can spam powerful psyshocks and coverage options (hp fire, focus blast) to wear down shared counters to the point where their powerful pixilated hyper voices and stab-boosted draco meteors are enough to bring down the remaining parts of the opponent's team. latios also acts as my primary switch-in to a plethora of powerful threats, thanks to his great typing, levitate, and access to reliable recovery. the evs are rather simple: since hidden power fire forces an imperfect speed iv onto latios, i lowered latios's speed to the point where it just creeps max speed base 108s (e.g.: terrakion, keldeo, infernape) by one point with the aid of a timid nature. while it may seem odd to not maximize my speed, i'd lose to the threats sitting at the 350 speed tier regardless thanks to the aforementioned imperfect speed iv and the next fastest relevant threats in ou are the musketeers and infernape. i then maximized special attack to deliver as much damage as possible, and invested the last 12 evs into special defense to help take special attacks marginally better. the ivs may look weird, but they ensure that latios hits a life orb number (which, while largely unnecessary, is rather neat), takes reduced foul play / confusion damages, and gains hidden power fire.
彡彡彡彡彡 - in-depth analysis:
latios is not as simple as it seems. thanks to his great dragon / psychic typing, he acts as my primary switch-in to plenty of powerful threats, such as breloom, keldeo, megazard-y, rotom-w, mega manectric, thundurus, and landorus (beware of knock off from the last two!), forcing them out with his sheer power. once that has happened, the next move i make is dependent on what my opponent is packing as a response to latios and on the number of mons on the opposing team latios checks. if i see that my opponent has no good responses to latios, i'll drop a draco meteor and watch the opponent take severe amounts of damage, paving the way for a teammate to clean up house. in contrast, if my opponent has a bisharp, ferrothorn, or scizor in the back that is ready to tank a draco meteor or a psyshock, i'll instead use hidden power fire as my opponent brings in one of the aforementioned mons to score heavy damage on and hopefully ko them, reducing the pressure on the rest of the team to eliminate them. if my opponent has multiple pokemon that latios checks single-handedly, i'll make it a priority to keep latios alive and healthy enough to deal with such threats, leading to me playing more conservatively to reach that goal; however, if my opponent has a few threats that latios can't check, i'll play more aggressively with latios, making double switches to get latios in against mons he has a positive match-up against and sacking him so a teammate more capable of dealing with the opposing team can come in for free. against sand offense w/ tyranitar and excadrill, i like using latios to force double switches into tyranitar. this forces their sand to start ealier than they would like, which limits the amount of time excadrill can wreak havoc on my team. in addition, it's rather easy to exploit the tyranitar switch-in because at least half of the team has a positive match-up against scarf and smooth rock variants, which tend to be the most common variants of tyranitar nowadays.
彡彡彡彡彡 - alternative options:
there are quite a few options that can work, depending on your tendencies. if you think this team is a bit weak to azumarill, you can use thunderbolt over hidden power fire to hit it harder. this would also allow you to maximize latios's speed thanks to the removal of the imperfect speed iv. however, doing so will increase the problems this team has with opposing ferrothorn and scizor unless you make other changes to the team (e.g. hp fire > grass knot on greninja) to account for the change in coverage. if you think that bisharp and tyranitar are more important targets than ferrothorn and scizor to lure in and ko, then you can use hidden power fighting over hidden power fire to smack the both of them hard. just note that this change makes ferrothorn a much larger bother to the team unless you make some more changes to the team to accommodate the problems this change creates. if you don't feel that psyshock is a necessity, you could opt to run both hidden power fire and one of thunderbolt, surf, or earthquake to hit different targets.
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keldeo @
timid | 4 def / 252 spa / 252 spe
ivs: 1 atk / 30 spa
• hydro pump | stronk stab move; use this later on to conserve pp and minimize the chances of a miss screwing you over
• scald | a consistent stab move that burns 30% of the time, every time
• secret sword | another consistent stab that screws some special walls over
• hidden power electric | fuk dragon dance gyarados
- overview:
keldeo is a cool mon. with a snazzy choice scarf around its neck, keldeo makes the match-up against opposing offense much more manageable than it would be otherwise. in particular, scarf keldeo revenge kills and threatens several threats that would otherwise be massive hindrances to the integrity of this team. its relative lack of power is compensated for by the sheer power its teammates possess, and in turn, keldeo provides the team with a much-needed source of speed. keldeo also forms a cool water spam core with greninja, which uses greninja to break apart the water resists so keldeo can clean up, as well as the famous keldeo + pursuit support core that the masses reviled back in bw ou. hidden power electric sees use over icy wind because opposing dragons are not as large a problem as opposing dragon dance (mega) gyarados, and the only common boosting dragon is dragon dance dragonite, which has slightly fallen out of favor in comparison to its choice band set, which is far more manageable for this team. besides, keldeo's stab moves hit the only other major targets of icy wind (garchomp, thundurus) hard enough. the lati twins, which resist all of keldeo's given moves, lose to half of this team 1v1. the evs themselves are the simple 252 / 4 / 252 that are common on choice scarf mons, and the ivs minimize confusion and foul play damage, which you should expect by now.
彡彡彡彡彡 - in-depth analysis:
in comparison to the rest of its teammates, keldeo's operations in battle are the simplest of them all. all i need to do with keldeo is switch into a threat that i want to revenge kill by either abusing its resistances or the koing of a teammate. threats that fall under this umbrella include scarf landoge, mega manectric, megazard-x, (mega) gyarados, and bisharp. after that, i just click the appropriate move to either dispose of the threat in front of it or get some damage on the next mon that switches in. to make this task easier, i have keldeo's more powerful teammates wear down the opponent's team to the point where they cannot stand up to keldeo's attacks. early on, if the opponent happens to have a healthy azumarill or mega venusaur in reserve and my keldeo is out on the field, i'll click scald and try to burn them on the predicted switch-in. aside from that, there really isn't that much thinking that goes with keldeo.
tl;dr: click moves to revenge kill mons. switch when done.
彡彡彡彡彡 - alternative options:
if you want to revenge kill dragons more easily, you can use hidden power ice over hidden power electric. just know that it's generally a worse option because you already have the rest of the team to eliminate most opposing dragons. alternatively, you could use icy wind over scald, but that's even worse than using hp ice over hp electric because now you have no recourse against azumarill and mega venusaur, as well as no30%100% burn chance. modest is nice if you want to make keldeo not as weak, but you do lose against adamant variants of swift swim kabutops (which keldeo happens to outspeed by 1 point if it's running a timid nature), +spe scarf garchomp, and +1 jolly megazard-x, which is never a fun event to go through.
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greninja @
timid | 252 spa / 4 spd / 252 spe
ivs: 25 hp / 0 atk
• hydro pump | greninja's strongest move; click this if the mon in front of you absolutely needs to die
• ice beam | the "safe" move; use this if you need a strong move w/ 100% accuracy
• grass knot | click this if you don't want to become complete azumarill and gyarados bait
• spikes | the not-innovation is here to exploit greninja's slower, more
- overview:
if there's ever a contest for the title of "best pokemon in ou", greninja makes a very strong case for itself. thanks to protean, greninja gains an effective stab on every move in its arsenal, making the process of switching mons into greninja a deceptively difficult process. even bulkier passive switch-ins are not 100% safe since they often lack the proper tools to hurt greninja and open up opportunities for greninja to set up spikes, which in turn lays an even higher cost on the opponent for switching mons around to combat greninja. in this team, greninja forms one half of a hazard setting core with heatran and one half of a water spam core with keldeo. it also acts as one of the team's late-game cleaners, cleaning up after the opponent's team has been worn down properly. in tandem with hydro pump, i use ice beam and grass knot because i feel that this combination of moves scores the most beneficial coverage for the rest of the team, which is more than equipped to handle the threats greninja itself cannot cover. grass knot sees use over hidden power grass because suicune would otherwise use greninja as set-up fodder. spikes sees use in the last slot over a coverage move to ensure that greninja isn't complete bait for more passive team builds that often have more than one mon that can effectively tank hits from it. the evs and nature are just your average 252 / 4 / 252 + timid, as expected of the average greninja. the ivs seem unconventional, but they get greninja to a life orb number (again, a force of habit for me) and minimize foul play and confusion damages.
彡彡彡彡彡 - in-depth analysis:
while greninja appears to be rather simple in function, it has a layer of complexity that keldeo lacks because of protean. against offense, greninja acts as a fast attacker that is useful in all stages of the game. early on, if i intend on using greninja as a breaker so a teammate can sweep, i'll sneak greninja in either after a teammate has fainted or through abuse of its resistances. after this, it becomes as simple as clicking on the appropriate move. in contrast, if i intend on using greninja to clean up near the end of the game, i'll preserve its hp, sending it out to throw a hit or set up a layer of spikes when necessary. this maximizes greninja's chances of being able to tank one priority move as it does work against the opponent's weakened team. in comparison to balanced and stall archetypes, spikes is not as necessary to winning the game since most offensive mons tend to be kinda frail already.
while greninja normally would be deadweight against stall teams, its access to spikes solves that problem. since most mons that stall teams use to deal with greninja tend to be of the passive sort, greninja can exploit their lack of offensive capability to set up one or two layers of spikes. once that's done, it's all a matter of getting the opponent to switch to their defogger or spinner. if the stall team's defogger happens to be weak to any of greninja's chosen coverage, then i'll make it my priority to quickly deal as much damage to them as possible to either prevent the defog / rapid spin from occurring, thus preserving my hazard(s), or get as much damage on the opponent as i can. i also have the option of switching into bisharp if i do not want to risk having greninja take a hit. however, if my opponent's defogger is mew or empoleon, i will instead switch to bisharp, absorb the defog, and move from there.
speaking of spikes, it is greninja's access to that move that makes it a major part of the team's hazard-setting core and overall game plan. as a result, they grant greninja an additional role as a defogger / rapid spinner lure. since most kinds of teams do not appreciate having to take extra passive damage for each switch, they will often send their defoggers / spinners in to remove hazards as soon as possible. this causes them to lose a bit of momentum and give me an opportunity to either eliminate ther defogger / rapid spinner or deal enough damage to the point where they cannot get rid of hazards a second time. do note though that it is not completely necesssary to set up spikes in every battle. sometimes, greninja can do work against the opponent's team just by clicking its attacking moves. examples of match-ups where spikes are not completely necessary include sand offense and other similarly fast forms of offense. teams with multiple ground immunities, regardless of archetype, also tend to fall under this umbrella.
彡彡彡彡彡 - alternative options:
unlike the options that i listed out for some of the other pokemon on this team, everything listed here is a legitimate option that won't hamper greninja's performance. if you don't think that hp fire latios and heatran are enough to eliminate mega scizor and ferrothorn, you could run hidden power fire over one of grass knot or spikes on greninja. alternatively, if mew, cresselia, and jirachi are greater nuisances than azumarill and mega gyarados, dark pulse is a nice attack that can work over grass knot or ice beam. just remember to make changes to some of the other team members to compensate for the difference in coverage. another option you could take is to run four attacking options and eschew spikes completely, granting greninja insane coverage at the cost of making stall a bit harder to beat. however, you can mitigate this issue by playing well.
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firebot @
timid | 12 hp / 252 spa / 244 spe
ivs: 0 atk
• sneaky pebbles | do i really need to explain this?
• fire blast | stronk stab that smacks lots of mons up
• taunt | fuk stall teams
• toxic | an interesting option that puts many mons on a timer
- overview:
from the experiences i've had building variants of this team, the sneaky pebbles setter has seen the most changes, with mons like azelf, garchomp, mamoswine, terrakion, infernape and landorus seeing use in this slot. while the listed mons may be somewhat different from each other individually, they all shared the same overall role: get sneaky pebbles up and hit hard afterwards. heatran here is a bit of a departure from my usual form of employing suicide leads to get pebbles down, albeit one that is necessary in my eyes. unlike the suicide leads of times past, heatran serves as a more lasting solution to a few problem mons that would otherwise have their way with the team. it also adds another edge to stallbreaking the team used to lack as well as a more durable sneaky pebbles setter that can set up rocks multiple times, even in the face of defoggers. while i normally would use earth power in the last moveslot to combat other heatran, it's come to my attention that it is mostly unnecessary thanks to the fact that most opposing heatran lack earth power and a move that can break heatran's air balloon in the same set. instead, thanks to the team's slight vulnerability to chansey, megazard (both variants), and talonflame, i opted to use toxic in the last slot to deal with all of these threats at once. the evs are the standard ones that allow heatran to creep max speed adamant excadrill outside of the sand, and the ivs minimize confusion / foul play damage.
彡彡彡彡彡 - in-depth analysis:
against all team archetypes, my first task is to get sneaky pebbles up. thanks to heatran's respectable typing, bulk, and power, this usually is rather easy to accomplish (even though it may sometimes cost me the air balloon). after this is done, heatran's roles change depending on the team i am facing. when i'm facing offense, i usually relegate heatran to checking threats such as charizard, scizor, smogonbird, and other threats weak to fire-type coverage and acting as a pivot to get other teammates in safely. the match-up with stall makes heatran a little bit more interesting. thanks to its speed and access to taunt + toxic stall-breaking shenanigans, most common stall commodities, most notably chansey, struggle to beat heatran. while chansey can just switch out to eliminate status, hazards and pursuit bisharp are there to punish chansey should it switch out. this last point is important because chansey hard-walls most special attackers, so having a semi-reliable method of eliminating it is handy.
彡彡彡彡彡 - alternative options:
you can't change heatran itself without making the team weaker to chansey. however, if you really want to take out opposing heatran and deal some damage to megazard-x, you can use earth power over toxic or taunt. the same thoughts apply for ancient power and megazard-y / smogonbird. however, if you feel that birdspam is a large problem for this team and scizor not as much, you can use rhyperior or tyranitar over heatran because they both bring the same sneaky pebbles support while having better physical defense.
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bisharp @
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adamant | 192 hp / 220 atk / 96 spe
• sucker punch | stab + priority + mindgames part 1
• knock off | semi-reliable stab that cripples everything that isn't a mega evolution or lacking an item already for free
• pursuit | mindgames part 2; weakens lots of mons for the rest of the team
• iron head | reliable stab that keeps slower faeries in check
- overview:
in a way, you could say that bisharp is a bit of a meta call. the popularity of the double intimidate volt-turn core of mega manectric and scarf landoge makes it even easier than before to activate defiant, and its typing is perfect for combating the popular psychic-types and faeries that run rampant in ou. in this team, bisharp takes on multiple important roles. with its access to defiant and the team's use of both spikes and stealth rock, bisharp acts as the team's primary hazard removal deterrent. thanks to the fact that this team uses five special attackers, bisharp serves as one of the team's wallbreakers, wearing special walls down to the point where they just crumble in the face of this team's repeated special attacking spam. thanks to bisharp's access to a mighty sucker punch and good resistances, it can assume the role of a revenge killer, easing some pressure from keldeo in the revenge killing department. this fourth role is purely coincidental, but thanks to bisharp having the strongest knock off in ou, it also happens to act as a disruptor. i took the evs from ctc's team building thread, so all credit to him for creating it. iirc, these evs give bisharp enough hp to avoid the chance of getting ohkoed by heat wave from the standard zapdos and 2hkoed by two consecutive draco meteors from life orb latios after factoring in sr damages, as well as enough speed to outpace max speed azumarill and anything else slower; the remaining evs were chunked into attack for obvious reasons. the slash between black glasses and lum berry will be explained in the "alternate options" section.
彡彡彡彡彡 - in-depth analysis:
when you look at this team's use of hazard stacking and vulnerability to chansey, bisharp is a perfect fit to the team because it enables the rest of the team for a sweep by weakening mons that would otherwise give it trouble. with knock off and pursuit, it creates a conundrum for opposing chansey: stay in and risk getting her eviolite knocked off, or switch and take extra damage. if my opponent chooses to keep chansey in and have the eviolite knocked off, then she no longer has the ability to effectively wall the psychic spam core of latios and mega gardevoir, much less constantly tank attacks. this same conundrum applies for specially bulky psychic-types, such as cresselia, mew, and jirachi, that would otherwise love to come in and have a field day with my team. bisharp's stronk iron head makes it this team's best answer to cm clefable, a threat that could otherwise boost up against keldeo, greninja, and latios, three important team members, and sweep the rest of my team clean and some other slower faeries. bisharp's typing and sucker punch makes it a semi-reliable revenge killer against boosted threats.
彡彡彡彡彡 - alternative options:
i have lum berry and black glasses slashed on the main bisharp set because i use both of those in equal measure. the lum berry makes beating mew much more manageable by nullifying will-o-wisp once, ensuring that knock off will hit mew hard regardless of what move it uses, all at the cost of a bit of power. in comparison, the black glasses grants bisharp 20% more power behind its dark stab moves (which comprise 75% of the listed moves) without cutting into its durability, which is extremely conducive to bisharp's main roles. maximizing speed and using low kick over pursuit is a route you could take if opposing bisharp are a pain. just note that adopting this change will cause the team to have a bit more trouble against most of the threats that bisharp shines against.
POSTFACE
well, one month and 45,000 characters later, i have finally finished typing up my last xy ou rmt. you could call this team a bit of a letter acknowledging the development of the xy metagame after the mawilite was banned since it showcases a few trends currently present in the metagame, such as the psychic spam core of mega gardevoir + latios and spikes greninja, as well as responses to a few trends i disliked, e.g.: bisharp, which beats the psychic spam cores, the double intimidate volt-turn core, and lo + 3 attacks genger, and scarf keldeo, which also deals with the double intimidate volt-turn core and revenge kills nearly every relevant boosting threat. now that this team is out there, i think i'll stop playing xy ou for the most part and focus my efforts on learning how to play oras ou and some other metagames, such as ubers, uu, and ru. anyways, have fun with this team, and have a great day. oh, and i have some shouts listed below if you're interested in seeing that kind of stuff.
before i begin this set of shouts, let me say thank you for accepting me as one of the room's new room owners :]
i'll edit individual shouts in later; i just wanted to tag you all in here.
Royalty:
AM:
Rob.:
Exeggutor:
Tyler0:
Eyan:
brokenwings:
Kreme:
DaAwesomeDude1:
Hairy Toenail:
MrAldo:
The Bravest Bird:
bottt: bottt
the competitive tutoring room regulars: you know who you are. anyways, thank you for making the competitive tutoring room as lively as it is now.
i'll edit individual shouts in later; i just wanted to tag you all in here.
Royalty:
AM:
Rob.:
Exeggutor:
Tyler0:
Eyan:
brokenwings:
Kreme:
DaAwesomeDude1:
Hairy Toenail:
MrAldo:
The Bravest Bird:
bottt: bottt
the competitive tutoring room regulars: you know who you are. anyways, thank you for making the competitive tutoring room as lively as it is now.
hi, there's a good chance i've forgotten quite a few people, so if i forgot your username and you want a shout here, please vm me.
just like before, i'll get individual shouts in later.
Hulavuta:
EonX:
TheEnder:
Arikado:
horyzhnz:
unfixable:
Redew:
Vertex:
Zodiax:
Harsha:
Jirachee:
tennisace:
Zeo Abyss:
jpw234:
Jukain:
Electrolyte:
Nova:
Doughboy:
dratinibot: dratinibot
my twitter followers: thanks for following me, and don't worry, i'll start tweeting again soon :]
just like before, i'll get individual shouts in later.
Hulavuta:
EonX:
TheEnder:
Arikado:
horyzhnz:
unfixable:
Redew:
Vertex:
Zodiax:
Harsha:
Jirachee:
tennisace:
Zeo Abyss:
jpw234:
Jukain:
Electrolyte:
Nova:
Doughboy:
dratinibot: dratinibot
my twitter followers: thanks for following me, and don't worry, i'll start tweeting again soon :]
