Project Monotype Battle of the Week! [MWP Hiatus]

Harpp

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Eien won in 2, here is some of the background behind the battle. Game 1 I decided to use HO Flying since it has decent/ good match ups all around and Eien used Rain Balance against me. The only thing I regret in this battle is not using Grass knot on my Thundurus-T which could have made a good difference. I had to bluff that I have Grass knot as I switched in Thundurus against his Mega Swampert lol. Game 2 was Balance Psychic against Bulky Flying and honestly my team was not able to break the bulky core of Celesteela, Zapdos, Gliscor etc and Eien made sure not to give me any chances as he played very safely. Game 2 I had a good win condition in DD Mew with Thunderbolt but finding the right time is hard as there was not really that could allow to set up as Celesteela had Toxic and Zapdos threatened with possible para. All in all even though I lost, I learned from this. Thank you for the battle Eien
 
Won vs my good friend Harpp in two ggs.
g1: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7monotype-817806373
g2: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7monotype-817812107

g1: Fairly straightforward matchup HO Flying vs rain. The team runs four attacks Mega Swampert (dual STAB, Stone Edge, Ice Punch) to really punish Water and Flying, so Seismitoad took up Stealth Rock. I ended up getting rocks for free, so I pretty much played the game as safe as possible from turn 2. Couldn't risk Thundurus-T having Agility + Grass Knot, so the Mega Swampert sack was necessary, since my Keldeo came in for free at that point and wins. Was a bit sad I couldn't use the tech it had because things had gone smoothly, but it is what it is.

g2: Another pretty standard matchup with two balance teams Flying and Psychic. This team was a slightly edited version of one EricSaysHi built during one of our tutoring sessions, so shoutouts to him for the team. I felt comfortable with this matchup being in my favor too, so I played super safe again to make sure I didn't lose to some surprise. Pretty much the whole game was Celesteela Leech Seed + Protect stalling, so not much else to say here.
 

Havens

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Voting is done! The top 3 nominations are as follows:
Ticken: 19
KevinELF: 15
Sirskit: 13

As a result (tagging memes aside), this week's battle will be Ticken vs. KevinELF! Same rules and deadlines apply, but as a reminder, you will be battling with Monothreat Electric, Psychic, and Rock. You may choose to battle eachother in whatever order you agree on. Please also post your battle time in this thread~
 
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Kev

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Won in 3 GGs vs Ticken, thanks for the fun games! Always an honour playing you, was so weird prepping for threat games without you helping me.

I pretty much got the BOTW spot through tagging memes, so next time threat shows up make sure you guys vote for Zukushiku/Sirskit/Torkool to play vs Ticken or each other!

(will edit later with my team pastes and explanations)

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7monotype-819846254 (Elec)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7monotype-819850296 (Psychic)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7monotype-819852920 (Rock)

Explanation for team choices & plays:

I was pretty worried about this series because I had to play Ticken, who has always been my #1 resource for threat help and insight. In both MPL3 and MWP, he helped me immensely by giving tips, collaborating on builds, thinking up different sets and testing. So lacking his help, paired with him knowing my approach to threat very well as opposed to him being unpredictable, really pressured me in the preparation phase. Honestly don't remember agreeing to use, so bare that in mind for my reasonings.

Game 1: Electric

The prep:

As with all my threat building, my first idea revolved around a gimmick. I started off building a double gravity team that relied on Electivire and Golem-A running through his team. After thinking about it and testing it out, I decided that would be inconvenient because it can easily fire back. Also, I know Ticken likes his Electric threat teams bulkier generally from what I remember (looks like I ended up being very wrong).
The final version of the team: https://pokepast.es/698d033f21076e9e
After a conversation with Torkool, I decided to use Zeroara because it can stop annoying Pokemon like Zapdos and Taunt Koko. Fake Out allowed me to do some scouting while getting some important chip damage. Taunt-Toxic was for the bulky threats. Another set I considered was Bulk Up Facade because of how prominent Toxic is in this threat. Also, I wanted to use Zeroara because of how new it is, making it more unpredictable. The rest of the team is rather standard. To keep my general idea, I added Scarf Electivire - Gravity Magneton core that would be able to clean late-game. I used Mental Herb so that I can set up on things like Koko. Naturally, Stalldos was used because of all the Toxic spam my team has.

The battle:

As expected, Ticken completely surprised me at team preview. Heliolisk was definitely not something I was planning on facing; I had no idea what set it could be. I was even more surprised when he revealed that it was a sun team. I lead off with Zeroara for a safe Fake Out turn. My original plan was to have his team be slowly weakened by Toxic, until it's safe for Gravity to be set and let Electivire loose. After seeing that all his Pokemon were offensive, it became obvious to me that Zapdos would easily beat the team bar the Encore Raichu. That made the rest of my play pretty straightforward, play safely with Zapdos and let it stall out his team. I made a pretty big mistake against the Rotom-F by not using Z-Nature Madness on it.

Game 2: Psychic

The prep:

I had a lot of trouble coming up with a team for Psychic because of how dull of a threat it is. Since I completely forgot about Ticken's love for moves like Psych Up and Heart Swap, I really wanted to use Z-Celebrate Meloetta. Shout out to Waszap , he worked out most of the team with me. The team isn't very complicated, Screens + Healing Wish support is used to assist the two major threats of the team: Meloetta and Mega Gallade. Band Victini provides assistance with it's amazing breaking power and Alakazam helps prevents set up Pokemon from just sweeping. Pain Split of Mega Gallade gives it some longevity to easily sweep the opposing team. I had considered using Mew like Ticken mentioned, but I honestly didn't think it had a spot on the team.
The team: https://pokepast.es/f1e03944a09624eb

The battle:

Not too much to say about this battle. I saw the Slowbro which made it obvious that his team is gonna be very defensive. That made it very simple for my set up sweepers to sweep as long as I taunt Slowbro before it sets up. I decided to lead Victini so that I can hurt the obvious Bronzong lead because I didn't really need it for anything besides that. After that, all I had to do was set screens and some hazards to bring in my sweepers and win.

Game 3: Rock

The prep:

While Rock is one of the more fun and diverse threat types, it was extremely hard to prep for because of how much I've discussed it with Ticken. It was a type played in both MPL3 and MWP, so we prepped for it together extensively. Especially during the later, where I think we had about a dozen distinct teams alongside Zuku and Misaka. I didn't want to recycle a team because that would be both boring and very predictable. That is why I opted for a Barbaracle team because it was rather neglected during the prep, for the more reliable Carracosta. I decided to use a special variant because Ticken likes using Passho Berry Rhyperior. Once again, I stuck to my roots and brought screens as my gimmick. The goal of it was to let Barbaracle set up. Also, I added some speed evs to Cradily to outpace what Ticken generally runs.
The team: https://pokepast.es/7563406964474aed

The battle:

I originally wanted to get rocks up, but I had to weaken Aggron because it's actually a huge threat and would cause huge damage to my team if I don't break sturdy quickly. I didn't think Ticken would run Scarf Terrakion which is why I set up rather early. Also, I wanted to catch him off guard with the Cradily but made the mistake of not taking advantage of it right away, which ended up costing me the game.
 
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Ticken

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B101 Leader
Well as most of my heat did not get to show off vs Kevin, let's show it off here instead! (Keep in mind no one besides CC would test w/ me so I had 0 idea how well these would fare)


So first was the Electric match; https://pokepast.es/a819344271807128
Basically, Electric is boring and I refused to use Stalldos and the common archetype of balance with setup. Weather is not explored much in Monothreat, aside from in Groudon, so I thought this would be a great opportunity to show off some interesting tech. The main goal for the team was to set up for Helio to put in lots of work with the Modest + Z Hyper Beam in the Sun knocking out nearly every threat in the meta.
252+ SpA Solar Power Heliolisk Breakneck Blitz (200 BP) vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Zapdos in Sun: 366-432 (95.5 - 112.7%) -- 75% chance to OHKO
252+ SpA Solar Power Heliolisk Breakneck Blitz (200 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Eelektross in Sun: 394-465 (105.3 - 124.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO
Lagging Tail Zapdos for the immediate U-turn out to Helio once the Sun is up, Wiki Raikou as my Agility + NP Thundurous-T check and the rest is fairly easy to comprehend.
As for the battle, I could immediately tell that Kevin's team lacked decent Ice-resists with only Zapdos being a potential problem depending on its set. Zeraora was not something I ever battled in Electric before but it is stalled by Zapdos pretty much so I was not too concerned there. My goal was, like the intention of the team, set up the Sun and (hopefully?) get to nuke the Zapdos with Helio but that didn't really happen. Overall I am happy with how the team performed even with Kevin using Stalldos + Toxic spam and not showing off Helio like I wanted.


https://pokepast.es/0881ba0c384cff02
Now my Psychic team had little inspiration because not much happens in Psy Monothreat besides Mew causing havoc aka not too many niche strategies to use. The overarching goal is to take hits and fire back or stall with healing and Toxic shenanigans. I personally love ID + Foul Play Mega Slowbro as it can take on both Mega Gallade and Mew without much effort. I'm very surprised Kevin opted to use that specific Meloetta set without Sub or Heal Bell because I am known to use a Z-Psych Up + Toxic Meloetta but to each their own, it worked for him. Mew is Reflect Type so that I can steal the dual typing of Victini, to live two V-Creates and heal, or Meloetta and be immune to Ghost while I spam boosted Leech Lifes.
252+ Atk Choice Band Victini V-create vs. 244 HP / 164+ Def Heatproof Bronzong: 282-332 (83.9 - 98.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Victini V-create vs. 144 HP / 140+ Def Mew: 213-252 (56.4 - 66.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO +
252+ Atk Victini V-create vs. 144 HP / 140+ Def Mew: 106-126 (28.1 - 33.4%) -- 0% chance to 3HKO = Very slight chance to 2HKO
Again, I think everything else is fairly straightforward so I will move onto the battle.
I led Bronzong because just about nothing can OHKO me right off the bat and if he led with Banded Tini, as he did, I could cripple it for the entire battle with the Lagging Tail and set up my SR directly afterward. My goal for this battle was to use Slowbro + Meloetta to wall everything and maybe get a Reflect Type off on the Meloetta. As I mentioned previously, Physical threats such as Mega Gallade shouldn't have been much of a threat with Slowbro around. My one comment here for Kevin is always use Mew in Psychic Monothreat. Creating heat does not mean sacrificing the top threat. Mew should always be used because it is too great not to. (Just my personal opinion).


https://pokepast.es/1f8ad36f05ec91bc
This is by far my favorite team of the three. I tested this team out once against myself (https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7monotype-817985510) that shows off most of my techs. (Ignore turn 8 because I found a better move there). The main idea here is to use Aggron as a lead to KO most Pokemon in the meta and maybe surprise a Rhyperior or Carra with the Z Solarbeam. Even with Adamant it can OHKO both and getting rid of Carra or Kabu would be fantastic for allowing Minior to sweep more easily. I don't think there are any notable calcs to throw out at you guys so I'll move straight to the battle itself. I led Aggron because it should be led for this team against any non Mold Breaker or ability ignoring Pokemon. My mistake came when I sent out Carra completely forgetting to check if Terrakion was faster and that Barbaracle gets Grass Knot. Even if Kevin's Terrakion was Scarf and won the tie against me, that would have been the prime position to set up Minior as one CC would bring me down to Shields Down and I'd have an SS up and essentially sweeping his team depending on the Stakataka. The rest of the game was me clowning around with Minior and Cradily and just hoping Staka was not Balloon or Shuca Berry.

Sorry this was so long but ggs to Kevin but bring more heat next time you promise me :p Wp and I can't take it from you. Enjoy the teams if you guys want and hmu if you have any other questions about my teams!
 

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