SM NU hail veil

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is a Tiering Contributoris a Past SCL Champion
Introduction

this is the prototypical NU aurora veil team. while i was not the first one to use veil in the tier, i did create this archetype of veil which rapidly popularized the playstyle in the tier, and was noticed by the council as potentially unhealthy during beta, but it was kept nu with a vote 6-3 in favor of no ban. now after a good amount of metagame development, a ban for the move is currently being explored and may very well soon depart the tier.



not to go too in-depth with the teambuilding process, but my decision to use veil ultimately stemmed from me trying to build with z-trick bulk up medicham as i saw the opportunity for veil to help support medicham in setting up. i used cofagrigus back then because cofagrigus was broken, and even more ridiculous with veil up, virizion as another sweeper which had some nice offensive synergy with medicham, and drapion for speed control. ultimately the version with medicham never gained major traction in the tier; it was replaced with turtonator because kiyo wanted to use turtonator on the ladder, so i just slapped a turtonator over medicham, and found that it functions better than medicham, and ultimately the team gained traction from there and was widely spread around.

after cofagrigus was banned, the effectiveness of the team was damaged but i found vivillon to be a solid replacement since it resists fighting (very important when you have two 4x weak pokemon to fighting) since it's such a dangerous sweeper with access to quiver dance and sleep powder. after meloetta was banned i replaced drapion with barbaracle because scarf drapion is terrible.

In-Depth


Aurorus @ Focus Sash
Ability: Snow Warning
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Blizzard
- Stealth Rock
- Freeze-Dry
- Encore

aurorus is the best hail setter for veil because it can consistently be used as a lead to easily setup hail, along with access to stealth rock, which it can reliably set, especially since xatu can't really come in without dropping to blizzard. in general it's also not that bad of an anti-meta lead, since it can handle common rock setters like steelix, rhydon, omastar, and archeops. encore's a nice move to lock pokemon into a setup move or an attack resisted with sandslash-alola so it can be brought in safely and setup veil.


Sandslash-Alola @ Light Clay
Ability: Slush Rush
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Aurora Veil
- Rapid Spin
- Icicle Crash
- Earthquake

sandslash-alola sets up aurora veil, the main purpose of this team. veil allows for the remaining teammates to more effectively sweep since they not only have less difficulty setting up, but also become more difficult to revenge kill. sandslash-alola is really fast with hail up as well, with scarf delphox realistically being the only common pokemon that outspeeds it, so it doesn't have much difficulty setting up veil, especially when considering aurorus can be sacked or provide encore support. rapid spin is a nice boon too for getting rid of rocks for vivillon or tspikes for the remaining teammates. sandslash-alola isn't too great offensively, but it can be mildly annoying to offensive teams, maintaining decent coverage with icicle crash and earthquake. brick break is an option too (i personally use this) as a countermeasure to other veil teams


Virizion @ Lum Berry
Ability: Justified
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Leaf Blade
- Close Combat
- Stone Edge

virizion in general is a solid swords dance user, it enjoys veil because some potential revenge killers like sneasel or scarf hitmonlee can't ohko it with veil up (scarf emboar does though). grass/fighting in general provides solid coverage and stone edge rounds it up hitting stuff like xatu, vikavolt, delphox, and golbat super effectively. i use lum so it doesn't have to worry about being burned by scald, hindering the sweep, although golbat checks virizion better without z-edge, the team doesn't have too much issue with golbat so i can afford to use z-move on other pokemon. also the grass coverage in general is nice so it can dent some water-types that give turtonator and barbaracle some problems


Vivillon @ Flyinium Z
Ability: Compound Eyes
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Quiver Dance
- Sleep Powder
- Hurricane
- Energy Ball

vivillon is a very dangerous sweeper because it can reliably put opposing pokemon to sleep which gives it more opportunities to setup quiver dance (also it may help other teammates setup in a pinch). vivillon has very few defensive checks, and with veil up, potential revenge killers like sneasel with ice shard or scarf drapion aren't able to do enough damage to KO a relatively healthy vivillon, allowing it to break through entire teams after setting up one or two quiver dances. i opt to use this as the team's z-move user since it kinda benefits from reduced knock off damage in the aspect that some common knock off users are fighting-types like hitmonlee and machamp, and vivillon is the only fighting resist on the team, so it lets vivillon switch-in a bit more safely against these pokemon. z-hurricane is nice since it'll allow vivillon to ohko golbat and cryogonal after rocks at +1, both of which can otherwise check vivillon.


Turtonator @ White Herb
Ability: Shell Armor
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Shell Smash
- Dragon Pulse
- Fire Blast
- Draco Meteor

turtonator is the first shell smash sweeper on the team. this team has also been important in revealing the effectiveness of turtonator in the tier, having access to unresisted STAB coverage (excluding carbink which is almost never seen). along with the support veil provides for turtonator, it has a fairly useful defensive typing with resistances to electric, grass, and fire along with good physical bulk which gives it some opportunities to setup. while not impressively fast after one shell smash, it is still good enough to speed tie with scarf emboar, a pokemon which is capable of outspeeding common offensive threats like sceptile, sneasel, and whimsicott. sometimes with veil turtonator can setup another shell smash, especially against more passive pokemon, which realistically turns assault vest slowking into the only check for this set, since it outspeeds and KO's basically everything else in the tier, while not fearing priority like ice shard from sneasel as much. i use white herb because turtonator doesn't really need z-draco to kill stuff, especially considering it can't be ko'd by passive pokemon after a shell smash with veil up.


Barbaracle @ White Herb
Ability: Tough Claws
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Shell Smash
- Razor Shell
- Return
- Grass Knot

barbaracle is the second shell smash sweeper and it can be more threatening than turtonator, especially with its better speed tier. razor shell + return coverage is nearly unresisted (only jellicent) and grass knot helps for seismitoad and quagsire (also hits slowbro decently hard in case it burns you). i use adamant because not losing bulk is still appreciated and a -spdef nature doesn't really make grass knot significantly stronger. the water/rock typing is nice because barbaracle like turtonator can setup on emboar locked into flare blitz, and also flying-type pokemon, particularly golbat. and of course like the other teammates, barbaracle enjoys veil so stuff like scarf drapion can't revenge kill it if barbaracle has taken some prior chip damage.

Threatlist

random brick break pokemon, assault vest slowking, encore whimsicott (which isn't really that good, i expect specs to be the more common set if veil is banned), ditto.

Conclusion

veil is really good and annoying to play against and it still wins with consistency, despite how predictable of a playstyle it is. also i've experimented with a variation with cryo triple screens and sub barbaracle recently, which i think is even better than sandslash veil, but this team still remains the typical nu veil team.

Importable

Aurorus @ Focus Sash
Ability: Snow Warning
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Blizzard
- Stealth Rock
- Freeze-Dry
- Encore

Sandslash-Alola @ Light Clay
Ability: Slush Rush
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Icicle Crash
- Rapid Spin
- Aurora Veil
- Iron Head

Vivillon @ Flyinium Z
Ability: Compound Eyes
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hurricane
- Sleep Powder
- Quiver Dance
- Energy Ball

Virizion @ Lum Berry
Ability: Justified
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Close Combat
- Leaf Blade
- Swords Dance
- Zen Headbutt

Turtonator @ White Herb
Ability: Shell Armor
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Draco Meteor
- Dragon Pulse
- Fire Blast
- Shell Smash

Barbripacle (Barbaracle) @ White Herb
Ability: Tough Claws
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Shell Smash
- Razor Shell
- Return
- Grass Knot
 

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