SM UU First UU Team

[b4gman]

Hi. This is my first proper shot at building a team for my favorite meta, UU. I don't play very often and don't understand the metagame beyond the basics, so I would appreciate some advice on what makes a team good. None of these mons are EV'd based on calculations, they're just Smogon Dex/Teambuilder recommended.

Stakataka @ Shuca Berry
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Gyro Ball
- Trick Room
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge

One of my favorite Pokemon. Nothing feels better than clicking Gyro Ball and watching a Pokemon go from 100% to 0%. Trick Room is to outspeed pretty much any other Pokemon in the meta, Stone Edge is a STAB for those that resist Gyro Ball and don't get hit by Earthquake, and Earthquake is for general type coverage. Shuca Berry lets Stakataka eat an Earthquake from almost anything without Defense EVs.

Azelf @ Focus Sash
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Explosion
- Taunt
- Knock Off

Standard lead Azelf. Taunt + max speed means it matches up well against other set up Pokemon. Explosion + 252 attack means that it can chunk out a bunch of Pokemon, that bring it low. Focus Sash pretty much guarantees Stealth Rock, and Knock Off is just a really good move. Levitate means that I have a Ground immunity and Azelf is a Fighting resist, which are two really big weaknesses for Stakataka.

Absol @ Absolite
Ability: Justified
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
- Knock Off
- Superpower
- Fire Blast
- Sucker Punch

Secondary sweeper. Knock Off is a strong stab, Superpower is for type coverage, Fire Blast is for Klefki and Scizor, and Sucker Punch is solid priority. It also serves as an anti-lead lead with its Magic Bounce ability, giving the team versatility when it comes to lead options.

Gligar @ Eviolite
Ability: Immunity
EVs: 252 HP / 156 Def / 100 SpD
Impish Nature
- Earthquake
- Roost
- Defog
- Knock Off

Defogger. Gligar also covers Stakataka's two biggest weaknesses. Knock Off is good utility, Earthquake is a STAB. Roost is for recovery, and it reduces Gligar's x4 weakness to Ice. Gligar can be used as a pivot for Stakataka, as all options that really deal with Gligar don't deal with Stakataka and allows it a free Trick Room.

Sylveon @ Leftovers
Ability: Pixilate
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpA
Bold Nature
- Hyper Voice
- Wish
- Protect
- Heal Bell

My cleric. Wish/Protect is solid recovery and allows me to scout moves, Heal Bell is to remove statuses, Hyper Voice is stab and bypasses Substitute, preventing set up. Sylveon also covers one of Stakataka's weaknesses in Fighting.

Suicune @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 HP / 160 Def / 96 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Calm Mind
- Rest
- Sleep Talk
- Scald

Special stall sweeper. Calm Mind is set up, Rest is recovery/status removal, Sleep Talk is for the two turns of sleep, Scald is a STAB and inflicts burn, allowing Suicune to outlast a lot of other Pokemon. Suicune is a Steel, Ice, and Water resist as well.

That's all. I hope to receive plenty of criticism for this team.

 

[Estarossa]

Hi there b4gman, interesting team you have here. I'm assuming you specifically wanted to build around stakataka here since you mention it as one of your favourite pokemon.

The first thing that pops out after making this change is your choice of a suicide lead azelf. This is normally used on Hyper Offensive teams, but you appear to be going for more of a balance build with a suicune, sylveon and gligar. These pokemon would provide plenty of opportunities for the enemy to clear your hazards away, and you are running defog on your own gligar which would also get rid of these rocks. During this rate, I am going to push it further towards a balance team, since you don't mention in your introduction what style you actually wanted to build around.

I also feel that OTR Staka is more fitting to a more BO/HO style, so am going to merge the azelf and staka together to start with. I tried to keep as many pokemon as I could on your team for the rate here, but I did change two of them unfortunately. Anyway lets move onto the rate.

Major Change: (

is a stakataka since i can't find sprites )

+

->

: As i said before, azelf just really doesn't fit with the final 3 pokemon you chose. You also mention it as a ground immunity and fighting type resist, but due to being so frail and being a suicide lead these two points will never actually have any effect. I decided to do a set change on stakataka, giving you a specially defensive rocker set instead. Rock blast is chosen over stone edge on this set as it is more accurate and can break past focus sashes (eg. froslass) and substitutes (eg. chandelure) while having more pp than stone edge. Gyro ball is your general steel stab, and toxic is chosen to be able to cripple swaps in, and other pokemon like latias. This set is able to swap in on pokemon such as , latias, togekiss, celebi etc and threaten them with its stabs / toxic or set up rocks, however it needs to watch out for coverage moves like aura sphere on togekiss and earth power on celebi. It can also come in on moltres and force it out thanks to a 4x resistance to flying, but takes heavy damage from fire blast so is a risky swap in and better brought in safely.

Shuca or Chople berry could be an option on this staka if you wanted to keep them, but in the final version of the team there will be multiple ground and fighting resists respectively, and leftovers helps more for the passive recovery.


(Note that for the OTR Staka set you linked, you should run a Lonely nature with 14 Def IVs as this gives you attack boosts instead of defence ones)

+

: You now needed a new pokemon. As it currently stood your team had very little stall matchup, and it also didn't like opposing bulky waters and bulky grounds. A Z-Psychic Nasty plot celebi helps to fix this. Hidden power fire was chosen in the final moveslot in order to improve your scizor matchup, as celebi often lures scizor in and can kill every set at +2. It can't however swap in on scizor, so this only improves the matchup through luring. On top of helping the stall matchup, celebi helps beat problematic pokemon for suicune such as opposing suicune, jellicent, while helping to remove bulky ground types that stakataka would dislike.


Minor Changes:

(Set Change) : At this point, your team still dislikes amoongus, with CroCune losing to clear smog amoongus and every pokemon except celebi still loses to it, and celebi very much dislikes swapping on on a sludge bomb. Therefore, since you are already running a cleric to support it, I recommend swapping to a VinCune set (sub + protect). The EV Spread of 252 HP / 40 SpD / 216 Spe Timid allows you to outspeed all pokemon up to mamoswine / togekiss, and with 40 SpD EVs amoongus cannot break one of your substitutes with giga drain after a calm mind. This set lacks the recovery that you posessed with CroCune, and needs to be careful about being statused, but your sylveon can help with this. On the other hand it is less passive since it doesn't need to worry about rest talk turns, and can pp stall pokemon easier thanks to the combination of sub + protect, and can avoid having it's stats reset by clear smog thanks to substitute.

(Move Change) : At this point, I recommend changing Knock off to U-turn. This allows you to gain some momentum on predicted swaps, which is particularly helpful against predicted swaps into pokemon such as primarina that the teams dislikes, as celebi and sylveon are able to deal with it much better if given a safe swap in, and scizor which would use you as set up bait.


At this point I felt like Absol wasn't really achieving very much. There were two options here, either run pursuit on it or swap it to something else. The main problem with absol to me was that it is far too frail to actually make use of its magic bounce ability, stopping it from really acting as an antilead. It also meant you didn't have any great forms of speed control on the team, as while it does outspeed latias, it can't deal with stuff like manectric, zeraora, aerodactyl etc. without using it's unreliable sucker punch. You also had a big weakness to nasty plot infernape at this point, which needed to be dealt with, and the team still doesn't like moltres very much as stakataka can't reliably swap in on fire blasts constantly and sylveon needs to be extra careful to never get into z-hurricane range.

Major Change:

->

: I therefore recommend swapping Mega absol for a Mega Aerodactyl. This gives your team both a form of speed control, as it outspeeds the whole unboosted tier, and a way of pursuit trapping latias and celebi. Earthquake offers you a reliable way to kill infernape, since you outspeed and vacuum wave won't do much damage, while pursuit allows you to pursuit trap pokemon such as celebi, latias, starmie, gengar etc, though you need to be careful about them staying in. Roost is chosen in fourth to allow you to consistently check moltres for the whole game, and allow you to take chip damage without caring as much. It can also serve as a knock off sponge, for instance against scarf krookodiles, though you need to watch out for stone edge.


Final Team:

Click sprites for team importable.

​

Hope you enjoy the new team.

Threatwise you need to watch out for choice specs primarina still, but on the other hand a primarina locked into a water stab is a set up opportunity for celebi / vincune. You will also need to try and keep stakataka relatively healthy if you want to check special attackers with it. You

Mamoswine can be a decent threat too, suicune has a good matchup vs it but cannot ohko it at +0 so you need to try and play aggressively around it, otherwise you'll lose a lot of health swapping in on it, celebi can deal with life orb variants and recover most of the ice shard damage but needs to watch out for sash variants if they aren't chipped by rocks yet.

Scizor is still a threat also, but suicune can beat it and celebi can deal with it thanks to HP fire, but you need to try and work out what set it is sooner than later and not allow it to set up on pokemon such as gligar / sylveon. Choice band variants are of little threat to the team however.

 

[b4gman]

Hi there b4gman, interesting team you have here. I'm assuming you specifically wanted to build around stakataka here since you mention it as one of your favourite pokemon.

The first thing that pops out after making this change is your choice of a suicide lead azelf. This is normally used on Hyper Offensive teams, but you appear to be going for more of a balance build with a suicune, sylveon and gligar. These pokemon would provide plenty of opportunities for the enemy to clear your hazards away, and you are running defog on your own gligar which would also get rid of these rocks. During this rate, I am going to push it further towards a balance team, since you don't mention in your introduction what style you actually wanted to build around.

I also feel that OTR Staka is more fitting to a more BO/HO style, so am going to merge the azelf and staka together to start with. I tried to keep as many pokemon as I could on your team for the rate here, but I did change two of them unfortunately. Anyway lets move onto the rate.

Major Change: (

is a stakataka since i can't find sprites )

View attachment 176115+

->

: As i said before, azelf just really doesn't fit with the final 3 pokemon you chose. You also mention it as a ground immunity and fighting type resist, but due to being so frail and being a suicide lead these two points will never actually have any effect. I decided to do a set change on stakataka, giving you a specially defensive rocker set instead. Rock blast is chosen over stone edge on this set as it is more accurate and can break past focus sashes (eg. froslass) and substitutes (eg. chandelure) while having more pp than stone edge. Gyro ball is your general steel stab, and toxic is chosen to be able to cripple swaps in, and other pokemon like latias. This set is able to swap in on pokemon such as , latias, togekiss, celebi etc and threaten them with its stabs / toxic or set up rocks, however it needs to watch out for coverage moves like aura sphere on togekiss and earth power on celebi. It can also come in on moltres and force it out thanks to a 4x resistance to flying, but takes heavy damage from fire blast so is a risky swap in and better brought in safely.

Shuca or Chople berry could be an option on this staka if you wanted to keep them, but in the final version of the team there will be multiple ground and fighting resists respectively, and leftovers helps more for the passive recovery.


(Note that for the OTR Staka set you linked, you should run a Lonely nature with 14 Def IVs as this gives you attack boosts instead of defence ones)

+ View attachment 176124: You now needed a new pokemon. As it currently stood your team had very little stall matchup, and it also didn't like opposing bulky waters and bulky grounds. A Z-Psychic Nasty plot celebi helps to fix this. Hidden power fire was chosen in the final moveslot in order to improve your scizor matchup, as celebi often lures scizor in and can kill every set at +2. It can't however swap in on scizor, so this only improves the matchup through luring. On top of helping the stall matchup, celebi helps beat problematic pokemon for suicune such as opposing suicune, jellicent, while helping to remove bulky ground types that stakataka would dislike.


Minor Changes:

View attachment 176117(Set Change) : At this point, your team still dislikes amoongus, with CroCune losing to clear smog amoongus and every pokemon except celebi still loses to it, and celebi very much dislikes swapping on on a sludge bomb. Therefore, since you are already running a cleric to support it, I recommend swapping to a VinCune set (sub + protect). The EV Spread of 252 HP / 40 SpD / 216 Spe Timid allows you to outspeed all pokemon up to mamoswine / togekiss, and with 40 SpD EVs amoongus cannot break one of your substitutes with giga drain after a calm mind. This set lacks the recovery that you posessed with CroCune, and needs to be careful about being statused, but your sylveon can help with this. On the other hand it is less passive since it doesn't need to worry about rest talk turns, and can pp stall pokemon easier thanks to the combination of sub + protect.

View attachment 176118(Move Change) : At this point, I recommend changing Knock off to U-turn. This allows you to gain some momentum on predicted swaps, which is particularly helpful against predicted swaps into pokemon such as primarina that the teams dislikes, as celebi and sylveon are able to deal with it much better if given a safe swap in, and scizor which would use you as set up bait.


At this point I felt like Absol wasn't really achieving very much. There were two options here, either run pursuit on it or swap it to something else. The main problem with absol to me was that it is far too frail to actually make use of its magic bounce ability, stopping it from really acting as an antilead. It also meant you didn't have any great forms of speed control on the team, as while it does outspeed latias, it can't deal with stuff like manectric, zeraora, aerodactyl etc. without using it's unreliable sucker punch. You also had a big weakness to nasty plot infernape at this point, which needed to be dealt with, and the team still doesn't like moltres very much as stakataka can't reliably swap in on fire blasts constantly and sylveon needs to be extra careful to never get into z-hurricane range.

Major Change:

View attachment 176119-> View attachment 176125: I therefore recommend swapping Mega absol for a Mega Aerodactyl. This gives your team both a form of speed control, as it outspeeds the whole unboosted tier, and a way of pursuit trapping latias and celebi. Earthquake offers you a reliable way to kill infernape, since you outspeed and vacuum wave won't do much damage, while pursuit allows you to pursuit trap pokemon such as celebi, latias, starmie, gengar etc, though you need to be careful about them staying in. Roost is chosen in fourth to allow you to consistently check moltres for the whole game, and allow you to take chip damage without caring as much. It can also serve as a knock off sponge, for instance against scarf krookodiles, though you need to watch out for stone edge.


Final Team:

Click sprites for team importable.

​

Hope you enjoy the new team.

Threatwise you need to watch out for choice specs primarina still, but on the other hand a primarina locked into a water stab is a set up opportunity for celebi / vincune. You will also need to try and keep stakataka relatively healthy if you want to check special attackers with it. You

Mamoswine can be a decent threat too, suicune has a good matchup vs it but cannot ohko it at +0 so you need to try and play aggressively around it, otherwise you'll lose a lot of health swapping in on it, celebi can deal with life orb variants and recover most of the ice shard damage but needs to watch out for sash variants if they aren't chipped by rocks yet.

Scizor is still a threat also, but suicune can beat it and celebi can deal with it thanks to HP fire, but you need to try and work out what set it is sooner than later and not allow it to set up on pokemon such as gligar / sylveon. Choice band variants are of little threat to the team however.

Holy shit, thank you dude. This guide you've provided is so detailed and well organized and I really appreciate you taking the time to teach me and show me what was missing on this team.