==five years ==
==INTRODUCTION==
Hello! I'm curiosity and this will be my first rmt after joining smogon (and playing competitive pokemon as a whole) 4 months ago.
I thought that I would take advantage of a sick day and post a team that i've seen quite a lot of success with.
For some unknown reason, i've always loved watching, building and playing with balance - maybe it's just the satisfaction of knowing where I misplay, or maybe even knowing that it helps build my confidence as a mons play, I honestly couldn't tell you what makes it so appealing.
==TEAMBUILDING PROCESS==
December 2017, I had just started playing on showdown and I had just reached 1500. As the lovely people in the OU room told me, 1500 was the perfect threshold to start building your own teams - and so I did. With my limited experience, I had deduced that Mega Venusaur was a pretty capable anti-meta 'mon, perfect for shutting down Kartana and Magearna - the two biggest offensive threats in my tinted eyes. I immediately added Celesteela due to the synergy that the two possessed - Venu would provide a check to Tapu Koko, Kartana and Zygarde while Celsteela would check annoying 'mons such as Pinsir, Hawlucha and Tapu Lele for it.
Clefable was the obvious choice for a third member - it could provide the team with Rocks whilst compressing that slot to be a semi-competent stallbreaker. Clefable also provided the team with an additional Fighting and Dragon resist, whilst acting as the primary Dark resist of the team. It also served as the check to 'mons like Zygarde and Medicham answer, which the team desperately need, while also being able to blanket check miscellaneous 'mons, with Lopunny and Hawlucha being the most notable.
The team at this point was lacking multiple factors - the most notable being a reliable fire resist / heatran answer and the other being a stallbreaker. Heatran itself fulfilled this role quite well, being able to improve the stall and the opposing balance matchup immensely. Similarly to clefable, it also granted the team with another blanket check to misc. 'mons if ever something were to happen to the primary defensive core.
Landorus was originally added as the primary glue 'mon - being able to threaten common breakers like Koko, Mawile and Hoopa out with its ground stab + uturn respectively. I realised that I could utilise landorus' ability to threaten those 'mons in particular and use lando to set rocks. At this point, I had changed clefable from its utility set to a defensive cm set to help with the stall matchup and the tran weakness.
At this point, my matchup against offense wasn't great and heatran alone wasn't enough to threaten most walls, so I decided to add another wallbreaker - Greninja. Its utility of spikes was complemented by Heatran's ability to force switches and Celesteela's leech seed, so it was almost mandatory at that point that I used it.
Ultra sun and moon was released, so defog was now accessible to landorus, meaning that I reverted Clef back to its utility set and replaced stealth rock with defog on landorus.
Venusaur had slowly begun to disappoint me, for a variety of reasons. The first issue was venusaur's 4mss, which left a sour taste in my mouth. I so desperately wanted both Earthquake and HP Fire on Venusaur in addition to Giga Drain, Sludge Bomb and Synthesis after several bad matchups - namely Rain, Hyper Offense and Tyranitar + either Kartana or Magearna - which had frustrated me beyond belief, as I kept on changing the last moveslot to accomodate the threat.... only for me to sorely miss the last move. So in frustration, I changed Venusaur to toxapex, which slightly improved my Volcarona matchup whilst still providing similar support to venusaur.
It was at this point that I acknowledged the weakness to Tapu Koko + the falling of Celesteela in the meta, so I had decided to exchange Celesteela for Ferrothorn. Ferro gave me additional spikes support in addition to more knock off support, which would come in handy against mons that clef couldn't knock against.
==CLOSER LOOK==
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Ability - Regenerator
EVs - 252 HP | 4 Def | 252 SpD
Nature - Calm
Scald | Recover | Toxic | Haze
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Ability - Iron Barbs
EVs - 252 HP | 48 Def | 208 SpD
Nature - Careful
Spikes | Leech Seed | Knock Off | Power Whip / Gyro Ball
Leech seed is intended to be used with spikes, by forcing switches, which immensely aids the offensive core. Protect is also an interesting option on ferrothorn, as it puts less pressure on clefable to be the primary medicham and hawlucha answer, while being able to scout for tapu lele's potential hp fire or focus blast, but cannot afford to run it at the current point in time.
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Ability - Magic Guard
EVs - 252 HP | 252 Def | 4 SpD
Nature - Bold
Stealth Rock | Moonblast | Softboiled | Wish / Knock Off
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Ability - Flash Fire
EVs - 252 SpA | 4 SpD | 252 Spe
Nature - Timid
Magma Storm | Earth Power | Taunt | Toxic
Heatran adds to this team in a variety of ways. Most notably, it's the team's Z-Move user of choice, which is something that I have found to be mandatory on all teams (barring stall). Aside from that, it performs as a fanstastic blanket check to Mawile (thought you must be careful playing around sucker) and opposing Heatran, threats that would be incredibly difficult to deal with defensively. Its trapping capabilities also synergise fantastically with Greninja, as it removes Toxapex or Chansey from the equation on a team with limited ways to deal with them, which is vital, especially when considering that this is the only stallbreaker on the team. With Magma storm, it sees many opportunities to trap common switch ins and with its Z crystal, its effectively able to eliminate even the sturdiest of switch-ins, including Zygarde. Leftovers in conjunction with Protect can be used, but it severely hinders its utility, in exchange for a better Lucha / Medicham answer.
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Ability - Intimidate
EVs - 104 HP | 184 Def | 24 SpA | 196 Spe
Nature - Jolly
Earthquake | U-Turn | Hidden Power Ice | Defog
shoutouts to Eternam for the set
Landorus has consistently been the most dominant 'mon in SM OU for quite some time now, and the recent meta shifts has only reinforced people's views on this. Landorus rounds this team in the form of role compression - for one, it acts as the team's most reliable form of speed control (or glue, depending on what term you prefer using) being able to revenge kill some of the biggest threats to the team. The EVs spread allows landorus to perform to its maximum capability as a cleaner / glue 'mon - 196 Speed EVs allows Landorus to revenge some of the largest threats to the team, namely Mega Alakazam and Zygarde with U-turn. Hidden Power Ice in conjunction with 24 Special Attack EVs ensures the 2HKO on both Zygarde and Landorus. All the listed mons pose as a significant threat, especially the former, which is lacks a solid defensive counterplay.. Lando also serves as a secondary defensive pivot - acting as the team's primary answer against pinsir, as well as an emergency check to Zygade and Medicham and Lopunny. The EVs allows Landorus to be as bulky as possible while hitting the previous benchmarks - it can take Mawile's Play Rough into Sucker Punch after rocks, while minimising damage from Pinsir's return or frustration. Intimidate provides the team with utility in the form of an attack drop, it allows the team - namely Clefable - to eat more hits. Lastly, Landorus acts as the crucial ground immunity of the team. Not much to be said about the ground immune portion, other than the fact that it should be mandatory (though not as important as ground immunities in oras or bw) on all teams. In short, this 'mon is a very capable 'mon, and serves its many roles on the team to a fantastic results.
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Ability - Battle Bond
EVs - 252 SpA | 4 SpD | 252 Spe
Nature - Timid
Hydro Pump | Dark Pulse | Water Shuriken | Spikes
There honestly isn't much to say about Greninja - other than it's fantastic at doing what it does. It forces out most breakers - namely Alakazam, Lele and Mamoswine - all of which lack solid defensive counterplay on this team in addition to being able to effortlessly check offense as a whole, notably beating Hawlucha and Kartana with Water Shuriken after some chip, it just relieves the team of immense pressure placed on it by these breakers. An additional spikes setter is really cool, especially considering how many free opportunities it gets (though this isn't shown in my replays, as most situations where I got both Ferro and Gren to set spikes, i've forgotten to save my replays.my bad) to set spikes. Without greninja, I feel like this team would be incomplete, as nothing can really fulfil this role as effectively as greninja can. I apologies if this is a lacklustre description, but in my eyes, there's nothing much that can be said about Greninja that the average player doesn't already know - other than this being a heatran switch in.
==THREATLIST==
If a name is coloured and bolded, then it is a major threat.
==SHOUTOUTS==
ou room guys A ShinyUnown Eden. laser火circus thanks for making my introduction to 'mons so fun! It's been a pleasure being a part of your community!
anyone who's ever posted in the ou next best thing - thanks for making my small input into the community such a success! Special mention to Flame from Heaven Felixx and mellowyellowhd for posting every week and being real cool people!
ou c&c guys thanks for being so chill and inclusive! (especially Exploudit) you guys really let my presence feel valued over there, even if my input is dumb.
allstarapology and DawnManeDuskWings while I may not talk to you as much as the above, your analyses give me joy whenever I read them.
ou room guys A ShinyUnown Eden. laser火circus thanks for making my introduction to 'mons so fun! It's been a pleasure being a part of your community!
anyone who's ever posted in the ou next best thing - thanks for making my small input into the community such a success! Special mention to Flame from Heaven Felixx and mellowyellowhd for posting every week and being real cool people!
ou c&c guys thanks for being so chill and inclusive! (especially Exploudit) you guys really let my presence feel valued over there, even if my input is dumb.
allstarapology and DawnManeDuskWings while I may not talk to you as much as the above, your analyses give me joy whenever I read them.
==REPLAYS==
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conclusion
i've never felt so excited to come to a conclusion - I feel like this is the first big step to make myself a part of this community that i've come to very much enjoy being a part of - almost like a new beginning. I'm very much excited to join this community and meet a tonne of new people and experience a whole load of new things, hell maybe even earn a badge or two. Anyways, a big thank you to everyone who's read this, it means quite a lot to me that you've invested your time into reading this. So until next time, thanks for reading and have a great day! I've also made an update post at the bottom of the page if you want to read it.
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conclusion
i've never felt so excited to come to a conclusion - I feel like this is the first big step to make myself a part of this community that i've come to very much enjoy being a part of - almost like a new beginning. I'm very much excited to join this community and meet a tonne of new people and experience a whole load of new things, hell maybe even earn a badge or two. Anyways, a big thank you to everyone who's read this, it means quite a lot to me that you've invested your time into reading this. So until next time, thanks for reading and have a great day! I've also made an update post at the bottom of the page if you want to read it.
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