SM OU (Peaked 1870, 169th) Re:Ascension, Flyspam reborn! (feat. Araquanid webs)

Ban Lele?


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Replay proof of current peak
ORAS had a wild flyspam team that smashed the meta, until Zapdos and Magnezone usage skyrocketed. It resurged in SM during the OLT era, where HO was everywhere, until taunt Koko usage shot up...

Webs offense was running through SM OU, until Diancie got released and the diamond queen got overhyped for a long while...

But what if flyspam could beat Koko, Magnezone, and Zapdos? What if webs could beat Diancie? Those would be amazing, right?
This RMT is the result of what happens when you put the two of those, together.


I wanted to build around two birds that bring in similar checks. Dragonite has some level of defensive utility and allows for some great tech so I paired it with Pinsir-M, the face of flyspam.

Immediately, I am reminded that my beloved Koko is known for giving flyspam cores a very tough time. Flyspam is also a highly offensive core in general, so I added Excadrill to give me a great hyper offensive lead that also acts as a solid check to Koko.

Mimikyu makes for a great member of hyper offense, spinblocking while also acting as an emergency check to a plethora of threats. Lele in particular is highly threatening, especially the rare scarfed variant, towards this team. Mimikyu provides me with a check to that.

Magnezone fits like a glove here, as it greatly weakens or removes checks to its teammates. Removing Scizor-M or Ferrothorn is amazing for Mimikyu, while breaking Celesteela and Skarmory is very important for the bird core to wreak havoc. It also acts as a secondary Koko and Lele check, both of which heavily threaten the archetype in general.

Ash Greninja is very, very dangerous to face when using HO. Araquanid has great synergy with the teammates, acting as a check to this monster while also setting webs for our flyspam core. Being a web setter that threatens Diancie is very nice, especially when paired with Flyspam to remove a major obstacle from play.

The Sets


Sandsatsu (Excadrill) (M) @ Focus Sash
Ability: Mold Breaker
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Toxic
- Rapid Spin

Standard HO lead set, Excadrill reliably gets the rocks up, keeps them off with rapid spin, and cripples things in the process with toxic. The toxic chip in tandem with rocks damage is very crucial to ensure some 2hko's or ohko's on key threats like Lando-T. Don't let the sash fool you, Excadrill is not a dedicated suicide lead. While in some games it's fine to use up Excadrill quickly, it also provides key defensive utility, notably in the Koko or Tspikes matchup. If you see a Koko or Tspike user on their side, keeping Exca healthy is incredibly important so your team doesn't get volt switched or poisoned to death.


Bubbles! (Araquanid) (F) @ Focus Sash
Ability: Water Bubble
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Sticky Web
- Liquidation
- Toxic
- Leech Life

This set deviates from the smogondex set to better tailor this team. I never found much use for Magic Coat because it's already very risky to taunt in front of a powerhouse like Araquanid, so the set skips it. HP Fire is also not needed on this set because the team destroys Kartana and even sets up on it to win, so Toxic is used to cripple key threats like Zapdos or Rotom-W that may try to defog the hazards away. Double toxic in tandem with Excadrill is great early game, as it pressures the opposing defoggers and softens them up for a late game sweep. Leech Life is very important as this is the team's sturdiest Ash Greninja check, the other being Dragonite. Max hp is given for maximized mixed bulk (ensuring we survive a fake -> return from Lopunny), and the 8 remaining ev's go into speed to creep opposing Araquanids. In matchups with an Ash Greninja, do not waste Araquanid recklessly. Its bulk and power can be useful throughout a game.


Hikari Tenshi (Dragonite) @ Dragonium Z
Ability: Multiscale
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Fire Punch
- Outrage
- Earthquake

A very unique Dragonite set made specifically to alleviate the previous matchup issues Flyspam had. +1 Z-Outrage cleanly ohko's the likes of Zapdos and Rotom-W along with other walls/tanks, and lets you use your dragon STAB once without locking into Outrage. Fire Punch targets steel types that don't take as much from Earthquake, and Earthquake hits the other steel types, along with some other walls like Toxapex. Jolly nature is used to outspeed Koko at +1. This Dragonite is used more as a setup wallbreaker as opposed to a sweeper, so Extremespeed is forgone to maximize coverage.


Decim -ate (Pinsir-Mega) (M) @ Pinsirite
Ability: Hyper Cutter
Happiness: 0
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Frustration
- Earthquake
- Quick Attack

Pinsir is arguably the best mega evolution of USUM OU, and it's not hard to see why. A destructive SD set that few can wall and can also clean teams up with webs or wallbreaker support, makes it extremely dangerous to all archetypes. Earthquake is chosen over Close Combat because we have Magnezone support to faint CC targets.


=) (Mimikyu) (F) @ Life Orb
Ability: Disguise
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Play Rough
- Shadow Claw
- Shadow Sneak

Standard SD Mimikyu with dual stabs and ghost priority, Life Orb is the item of choice because Dragonite is our Z-move user. Jolly nature is needed because scarf Lele must be outsped under webs by as much as possible. Mimikyu is a great emergency check to a variety of threats too thanks to disguise, so play it carefully.


Polic (Magnezone) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Magnet Pull
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Thunderbolt
- Volt Switch
- Flash Cannon
- Hidden Power [Fire]

Classic Magnezone traps and removes targets that are very threatening to the bird core, or Mimikyu. The scarf set is chosen to also provide us with an opposing bird check, which we lacked aside from Mimikyu (but you don't want to put a lot of pressure on Mimikyu to do its job). Magnezone is also a second sturdy Koko check when used alongside Excadrill, which is great because Koko heavily threatens the flyspam archetype.

Lele teams are typically weak to webs. Get em down, keep your resists healthy, and you should win.
Araquanid can eat a dark pulse and ohko back, Dragonite can set up if multiscale is intact.
+ shed shell. This matchup is very bleak, comes down to the Skarmory's set. You may have to sacrifice one breaker to get Skarmory low, and then outplay it hard to keep it low.
+ sand rush. The classic flyspam sweeper still outspeeds the team even under webs if the sand is up. Hope the iron head doesn't flinch your Mimikyu, and try to revenge it outside of sand. Thank goodness the sand archetype is rare.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-681816749 vs zapdos offense. Good showcase of Z-Outrage doing its thing
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-682062977 vs some garbage sableye stall that gets 6-0'd by koko
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-682332665 vs zapdos/fini + scizor bulky offense, which is supposed to be a bad matchup but BAN FLYSPAM
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-682499673 vs koko-medicham, which is supposed to fuck me up. Good showcase of Araquanid's webs coming in clutch
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-682598938 vs hippo + skarm-bliss stall
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-682607548 vs blace + latios-m offense. Araquanid is incredibly important here to check Ash Gren and Latios-M

Shoutouts...

to the good people of my university's Pokemon League, how the heck did so many good players get together in one league by chance. You guys don't know this, but y'all make me learn a ton about this game <3

to you, Dondyxd. Always keeping me wanting to improve myself every time I see you build fresh heat and go up high on ladder with it.

to Waszap for casually joining our league and being a champion twice. Miss me with that matchup shit, I'll get you in the comp season you scrub.

to the people of good saturdays. You're all really cool people, don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

to all the top players that drive me to reach your level one day. I'm pretty done with the ladder now lol, so perhaps now is the time to give the tour scene a shot.

especially to the innovative KtutGOAT! Your medicham-slaking team is a work of art, I wasn't sure what to suggest without breaking all that gorgeous synergy. I don't think I'll ever get to that level of creativity that inspired me to get into this game seriously, but I sure as hell can try in my own way. Stay awesome <3

Concluding Thoughts

When using this team, every slot must be carefully used. Nothing here is truly just death fodder like a suicide Azelf, for example. Every teammate has a role to fulfill. It's much less braindead than it would seem and requires thinking many turns ahead to see the outcome, so don't play it like a 123456 sort of team. I hope you enjoy this resurrection of two fallen playstyles as much as I did, and I hope you see that even past formulas can be revamped to their former glory again!

“Who cares about tomorrow, if today we are free?”

Until next time~
The Dark Angel



Sandsatsu (Excadrill) (M) @ Focus Sash
Ability: Mold Breaker
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Toxic
- Rapid Spin

Bubbles! (Araquanid) (F) @ Focus Sash
Ability: Water Bubble
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Sticky Web
- Liquidation
- Toxic
- Leech Life

Hikari Tenshi (Dragonite) @ Dragonium Z
Ability: Multiscale
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Fire Punch
- Outrage
- Earthquake

Decim -ate (Pinsir-Mega) (M) @ Pinsirite
Ability: Hyper Cutter
Happiness: 0
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Frustration
- Earthquake
- Quick Attack

=) (Mimikyu) (F) @ Life Orb
Ability: Disguise
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Play Rough
- Shadow Claw
- Shadow Sneak

Polic (Magnezone) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Magnet Pull
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Thunderbolt
- Volt Switch
- Flash Cannon
- Hidden Power [Fire]
 
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Your team is very weak to tyranitar in general and sand teams, and to provide a better check in against sand teams i would suggest putting in excadrill with sand rush instead of mold breaker. Even though the team in general doesn`t face sand teams more then the others, i believe this is needed because i don`t see a reliable check to that. Also infernape is actually really scary. And both of these araquanid checks but its not really worth switching in to it as it can deal heavy damange with moves link gunk shot for example on to araquanid and the others. While also providing flare blitz. However I`ve noticed pinsir is the check for that but just saying these are some scary threats. Also with the tyranitar i mean one with ice punch/ice fang mainly. Another thing is trick room teams. If they get a chance to setup trick room on you. You need to keep dragonite alive, which i would suggest roost. But since you need pretty much all of these moves i guess it`s fine. And that`s if you will take this to consideration to replace fire punch with ice punch because you already have a solid hidden power fire check to most of them. So having ice punch to kill landorus-t zygarde or garchomp would not really be bad. Also while mentioning garchomp, garchomp is also really powerful and a big threat to this team especially in sand as i mentioned earlier.

Although i love the fact that you`re bringing back the flyspam i just love it! And the idea is fantastic. I Just would want you to take this into consideration because it could maybe leave some parts on minus but huge plus in other battles. Even though it`s maybe not optimal for excadrill without sand to have sand rush. I Just see that could be one way of making it easier against them since the opposite excadrill can be very annoying too alongside with the rest.
 
Your team is very weak to tyranitar in general and sand teams, and to provide a better check in against sand teams i would suggest putting in excadrill with sand rush instead of mold breaker. Even though the team in general doesn`t face sand teams more then the others, i believe this is needed because i don`t see a reliable check to that. Also infernape is actually really scary. And both of these araquanid checks but its not really worth switching in to it as it can deal heavy damange with moves link gunk shot for example on to araquanid and the others. While also providing flare blitz. However I`ve noticed pinsir is the check for that but just saying these are some scary threats. Also with the tyranitar i mean one with ice punch/ice fang mainly. Another thing is trick room teams. If they get a chance to setup trick room on you. You need to keep dragonite alive, which i would suggest roost. But since you need pretty much all of these moves i guess it`s fine. And that`s if you will take this to consideration to replace fire punch with ice punch because you already have a solid hidden power fire check to most of them. So having ice punch to kill landorus-t zygarde or garchomp would not really be bad. Also while mentioning garchomp, garchomp is also really powerful and a big threat to this team especially in sand as i mentioned earlier.

Although i love the fact that you`re bringing back the flyspam i just love it! And the idea is fantastic. I Just would want you to take this into consideration because it could maybe leave some parts on minus but huge plus in other battles. Even though it`s maybe not optimal for excadrill without sand to have sand rush. I Just see that could be one way of making it easier against them since the opposite excadrill can be very annoying too alongside with the rest.
Hi, thanks for taking a read and providing suggestions :]

In terms of Tyranitar, everything on the team threatens it with a super effective earthquake, liquidation, play rough, or flash cannon. Sand rush Excadrill however is indeed a massive threat, but this specific set is also a hard counter to the entire flyspam archetype. Mimikyu or a multiscale Dragonite can hope to check it, but that's about it. Thankfully, sand rush Excadrill is very rare because of its poor matchup spread in USUM OU, but I will definitely add this to the threat list :]

The exceedingly rare Infernape can be checked by Pinsir's QA, and by Mimikyu. It also fails to revenge kill much vs the team (+1 Dnite outspeeds under webs). Overall, it's easily played around.

Funnily enough, Trick Room is a very nice matchup for this team. Both sash leads toxic or smash everything and Excadrill keeps rocks off from Uxie, meaning it's very easy to use sash leads to stall TR turns and revenge kill the abusers. Mimikyu can also revenge kill TR abusers. From my experiences, the TR setters will get worn out and then the combination of the birds clean up later once TR is gone.

Regarding Dragonite's set, I will agree that Fire Punch feels redundant on Dragonite at first, but it is essential for breaking Celesteela because that fortress is broken Magnezone cannot ohko it unless we run specs Zone (which does not work on this team at all). Ice Punch could be a cool option, but not very much on the team appreciates its targets getting lured and ohko'd seeing how Pinsir actually sets up on standard defensive Lando-T.

Garchomp is primarily used as a breaker now, meaning that it doesn't run scarf very much anymore. Under webs, everything can revenge kill non-scarf Garchomp. Scarf variants are extremely rare now because scarfchomp is a horrible set the higher up on ladder one goes, and even that set can be played around because it has to lock into unfavorable moves like Dragon Claw (Mimikyu abuses) or Stone Edge (Zone pivots on this to bring back in the broken birds).

Mold breaker is exceedingly important on Excadrill. It means the Latis and Rotoms cannot defog on it, it ensures rocks go up vs stall, it hits Mimikyu through its disguise, and more. Giving it up for a 50/50 vs the rare sand rush excadrill worsens my overall matchup spread.

Overall, I definitely considered all of the changes you suggested and if any big metagame trends occur that would favor these changes, I will gladly use them :] Thanks for reading!
 
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I think this team is very well made and that there is not a lot to change but i think that u should try this out.


Leech Life -> Magic Coat

Thanks to sash u guarantee to set up Webs, which allows most of ur team to outspeed Ash-Greninja anyway. I reckon that you could also replace Toxic for Magic Coat but I think that the sheer utility from double Toxic is too good to pass out on. U should run Magic Coat because it improves ur match up against opposing suicide leads such as Greninja, it also helps against Pokemon that tend to carry Taunt.
 
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Ktütverde

of course
is a Top Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Former Smogon Metagame Tournament Circuit Champion
Hey KuraiTenshi ie THEDARKANGEL! :)

Congratulations man this is a very well built team. In spite of looking like a copypaste of xtra's birdspam, I can clearly see the work you put in making it as solid as possible. What really strikes me is the composition: it is a 3 support+3 winconditions team, which is extremely rare, and usually ineffective. I've recently worked on a pinsir+dnite team and i realised magnezone was quite awful because of the loss of momentum it brings vs zygarde and landorus., however yours is fundamentally different from most HO teams due to the utility araquanid provides as a speedcontrol and anti Ash gren. Drill+Araquanid+magnezone is a solid core on its own, and I really have to stress on its solidity and the insane support it provides. I guess it's also important to point out at the fact you already described: Dnite+Pinsir go together very well, because of eliminating similar checks for each other, but also because Dnite is a lategame sweeper immuned to watershuriken and scarfkartana to some extent.

I just saw your shoutout to ktutGOAT, idk how you managed to tag me by using a different name lol I really loved it :)
So it's my turn to say: I am not sure what to suggest without breaking all that gorgeous synergy. But a real Ktut never considers a team as finished so I actually have something to suggest!!

Knock off->Earthquake

I usually use this set because... pinsir actually only needs flying stabs to sweep through teams. If you set up your rocks and webs, a +2 pinsir return will KO everything except a magearna that can't kill you back, and a tyranitar that is frankly rare atm. Stall is quite common and a knock pinsir can take this shed shell off and allow you not to lose your only stallbreaker vs a counter/BB skarmory. +2 knock does insane damage to magnezone/heatran too:
+2 252 Atk Aerilate Pinsir-Mega Return vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Tapu Koko: 259-306 (92.1 - 108.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock

+2 252 Atk Pinsir-Mega Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Heatran: 229-270 (70.8 - 83.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
+2 252 Atk Pinsir-Mega Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Magnezone: 214-252 (76.1 - 89.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock

not really satisfying vs balance i know but helps a lot vs skarmory



Z Fly+Ice coverage?

Dragonite @ Flyinium Z
Ability: Multiscale
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Fly
- Outrage / Extreme speed / Ice beam / Ice punch / Roost
- Earthquake


I'm not a big fan of Z outrage because it is extremely easy to pivot with magearna to waste the Z and go back landorus. Z fly guarantees kills due to flying being a tremendously spammable move, I also would like to suggest replacing firepunch since you have magnezone, otherwise juste keep firepunch as a steel lure and replace magnezone? I recently have had much success with icebeam dnite because it prevents rocky helmet from weakening you and it does a lot of damage to landorus; tho roost allows you to setup on landorus by removing one ice weakness and preventing stuff like kartana to spamm +1 leafblade until you are in ko range of something like scizor. Dragonite has an incredible movepool!!
Ice punch targets zygarde preventing substitutes after you fly, and netting a ko contrary to icebeam while Espeed kills a weak zygarde before a weak zygarde kills you. lol.

0- SpA Dragonite Ice Beam vs. 252 HP / 24 SpD Landorus-Therian: 272-324 (71.2 - 84.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
252 Atk Dragonite Ice Punch vs. 252 HP / 216+ Def Landorus-Therian: 268-316 (70.1 - 82.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock


Sitrus Berry->Focus sash

Araquanid is just too bulky to waste a sash on it, because the things that threaten to ko it are tapukoko which gives free excadrill, or pinsir which deoesnt care about a liquidation or webs. So I thought a sitrus berry would help you force a greninja out: lemme show you the calc
252 SpA Choice Specs Greninja Dark Pulse vs. 248 HP / 8 SpD Araquanid: 130-154 (38.3 - 45.4%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
it means that if you bring araquanid on rocks (excadrill can't spin rocks from rockyhelmet lando or ferro) you eat a darkpulse, recover 25% so you have at least 54% of your health left: greninja can't 2hko. Aguav berry activates under 25%, which won't happen here :)



I hope this little changes help you, and if they don't, hope you liked them^^ Whatever, this is a really cool team that I'm going to try out because I've wanted to play the excadrill+araquanid+magnezone core in a viable team ! This is gimmick af and solid, I wish you the best of luck in your future builds Kurai Tenshi, keep being creative and you will master the metagame without trouble!
See you :)
 
Hey KuraiTenshi ie THEDARKANGEL! :)

Congratulations man this is a very well built team. In spite of looking like a copypaste of xtra's birdspam, I can clearly see the work you put in making it as solid as possible. What really strikes me is the composition: it is a 3 support+3 winconditions team, which is extremely rare, and usually ineffective. I've recently worked on a pinsir+dnite team and i realised magnezone was quite awful because of the loss of momentum it brings vs zygarde and landorus., however yours is fundamentally different from most HO teams due to the utility araquanid provides as a speedcontrol and anti Ash gren. Drill+Araquanid+magnezone is a solid core on its own, and I really have to stress on its solidity and the insane support it provides. I guess it's also important to point out at the fact you already described: Dnite+Pinsir go together very well, because of eliminating similar checks for each other, but also because Dnite is a lategame sweeper immuned to watershuriken and scarfkartana to some extent.

I just saw your shoutout to ktutGOAT, idk how you managed to tag me by using a different name lol I really loved it :)
So it's my turn to say: I am not sure what to suggest without breaking all that gorgeous synergy. But a real Ktut never considers a team as finished so I actually have something to suggest!!

Knock off->Earthquake

I usually use this set because... pinsir actually only needs flying stabs to sweep through teams. If you set up your rocks and webs, a +2 pinsir return will KO everything except a magearna that can't kill you back, and a tyranitar that is frankly rare atm. Stall is quite common and a knock pinsir can take this shed shell off and allow you not to lose your only stallbreaker vs a counter/BB skarmory. +2 knock does insane damage to magnezone/heatran too:
+2 252 Atk Aerilate Pinsir-Mega Return vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Tapu Koko: 259-306 (92.1 - 108.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock

+2 252 Atk Pinsir-Mega Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Heatran: 229-270 (70.8 - 83.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
+2 252 Atk Pinsir-Mega Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Magnezone: 214-252 (76.1 - 89.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock

not really satisfying vs balance i know but helps a lot vs skarmory



Z Fly+Ice coverage?

Dragonite @ Flyinium Z
Ability: Multiscale
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Fly
- Outrage / Extreme speed / Ice beam / Ice punch / Roost
- Earthquake


I'm not a big fan of Z outrage because it is extremely easy to pivot with magearna to waste the Z and go back landorus. Z fly guarantees kills due to flying being a tremendously spammable move, I also would like to suggest replacing firepunch since you have magnezone, otherwise juste keep firepunch as a steel lure and replace magnezone? I recently have had much success with icebeam dnite because it prevents rocky helmet from weakening you and it does a lot of damage to landorus; tho roost allows you to setup on landorus by removing one ice weakness and preventing stuff like kartana to spamm +1 leafblade until you are in ko range of something like scizor. Dragonite has an incredible movepool!!
Ice punch targets zygarde preventing substitutes after you fly, and netting a ko contrary to icebeam while Espeed kills a weak zygarde before a weak zygarde kills you. lol.

0- SpA Dragonite Ice Beam vs. 252 HP / 24 SpD Landorus-Therian: 272-324 (71.2 - 84.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
252 Atk Dragonite Ice Punch vs. 252 HP / 216+ Def Landorus-Therian: 268-316 (70.1 - 82.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock


Sitrus Berry->Focus sash

Araquanid is just too bulky to waste a sash on it, because the things that threaten to ko it are tapukoko which gives free excadrill, or pinsir which deoesnt care about a liquidation or webs. So I thought a sitrus berry would help you force a greninja out: lemme show you the calc
252 SpA Choice Specs Greninja Dark Pulse vs. 248 HP / 8 SpD Araquanid: 130-154 (38.3 - 45.4%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
it means that if you bring araquanid on rocks (excadrill can't spin rocks from rockyhelmet lando or ferro) you eat a darkpulse, recover 25% so you have at least 54% of your health left: greninja can't 2hko. Aguav berry activates under 25%, which won't happen here :)



I hope this little changes help you, and if they don't, hope you liked them^^ Whatever, this is a really cool team that I'm going to try out because I've wanted to play the excadrill+araquanid+magnezone core in a viable team ! This is gimmick af and solid, I wish you the best of luck in your future builds Kurai Tenshi, keep being creative and you will master the metagame without trouble!
See you :)
Ok you are showing a clear lack of metagame knowledge here. For one, Knock off on Pinsir is a terrible idea for a lot of reasons. It doesn’t hit anything that earthquake doesn’t, makes Pinsir hopeless against tyranitar which is actually a top tier threat contrary to what you believe. Earthquake + Flying Stab has perfect coverage when used with Magnezone. Knock off is just a huge waste of a moveslot.
As for Araquinad, it has focus sash becuase it is a suicide lead, so sitrus berry is a terrible item for it. This leads me to question if you even played or at least studied the current meta.
And lol no Stall is not common at all it is legit dead.
 

Ktütverde

of course
is a Top Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Former Smogon Metagame Tournament Circuit Champion
Ok you are showing a clear lack of metagame knowledge here. For one, Knock off on Pinsir is a terrible idea for a lot of reasons. It doesn’t hit anything that earthquake doesn’t, makes Pinsir hopeless against tyranitar which is actually a top tier threat contrary to what you believe. Earthquake + Flying Stab has perfect coverage when used with Magnezone. Knock off is just a huge waste of a moveslot.
As for Araquinad, it has focus sash becuase it is a suicide lead, so sitrus berry is a terrible item for it. This leads me to question if you even played or at least studied the current meta.
And lol no Stall is not common at all it is legit dead.
I think I shouldn't answer to someone who hasn't read any of the explanations I wrote for an hour. Suicide lead = Focus Sash? Araquanid = Suicide Lead? You had better read the RMT before, watch the replays and train a bit in OU before saying such a stupidity please, and never call a noob someone who is legitimately more experienced than you please. Your post is quite irrelevant, and even though I'm not angry, you did waste 5 minutes of my life to make a useless post. Make sure not to post when you have nothing to say man, bring some viable arguments if you want me to decently answer to what is actually an insult.
 
I think I shouldn't answer to someone who hasn't read any of the explanations I wrote for an hour. Suicide lead = Focus Sash? Araquanid = Suicide Lead? You had better read the RMT before, watch the replays and train a bit in OU before saying such a stupidity please, and never call a noob someone who is legitimately more experienced than you please. Your post is quite irrelevant, and even though I'm not angry, you did waste 5 minutes of my life to make a useless post. Make sure not to post when you have nothing to say man, bring some viable arguments if you want me to decently answer to what is actually an insult.
Jesus Christ Man calm down. I’m sorry if I offended you. I was merely disagreeing with your suggestions. furthermore, you are completely disregarding all the factually incorrect info you put in your post such as tyranitar being rare and Stall being common. I honestly think you are being childish right now.
 

Ktütverde

of course
is a Top Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Former Smogon Metagame Tournament Circuit Champion
Jesus Christ Man calm down. I’m sorry if I offended you. I was merely disagreeing with your suggestions. furthermore, you are completely disregarding all the factually incorrect info you put in your post such as tyranitar being rare and Stall being common. I honestly think you are being childish right now.
so I spend my time playing OU and i don't know what are the trends: playing stall nonstop and it is rare. weird. Tho I'm talking about 1900+ elo players it might be different in lower ladder idk.
 
so I spend my time playing OU and i don't know what are the trends: playing stall nonstop and it is rare. weird. Tho I'm talking about 1900+ elo players it might be different in lower ladder idk.
Just cause you play stall doesn’t mean other people do. This is like saying that Scarf Victini was commen when it peaked the ladder.
 
Jesus Christ Man calm down. I’m sorry if I offended you. I was merely disagreeing with your suggestions. furthermore, you are completely disregarding all the factually incorrect info you put in your post such as tyranitar being rare and Stall being common. I honestly think you are being childish right now.
I Think the way that you said it was actually really bad b4. As you actually said ``the questions is if you played this meta`` Like that`s not a nice thing to say if he actually tries he`s hardest. So i mean i agree with you on the knock off thing but you could`ve said it in a different way. Also ktutverde still makes some nice points with that araquanid for example that gave me too a open eye that i should change mine.
 
Wow, this got a lot of attention, for better and worse it seems lol (please be nice to each other guys, no need to insult each other. People have different building methods and mindsets, which is what makes RMT's and this community in general all the more worthwhile). Thanks for reading everyone :]
I think this team is very well made and that there is not a lot to change but i think that u should try this out.


Leech Life -> Magic Coat

Thanks to sash u guarantee to set up Webs, which allows most of ur team to outspeed Ash-Greninja anyway. I reckon that you could also replace Toxic for Magic Coat but I think that the sheer utility from double Toxic is too good to pass out on. U should run Magic Coat because it improves ur match up against opposing suicide leads such as Greninja, it also helps against Pokemon that tend to carry Taunt.
Magic coat is something I ran at first, but then I struggled vs Ash Gren which is a huge threat to most HO. Excadrill actually keeps rocks/spikes off vs opposing sash Gren leads, even ko'ing them. I understand that often means I don't get to throw rocks of my own up, but it shuts down their lead as well and then Araquanid gets webs up anyway. It comes down to deciding which matchup I'd prefer to improve, and I think the Ash Greninja matchup is far more important than ensuring a successful trade against HO leads I already have the advantage vs anyway. Still a nice suggestion that will be most useful in a meta where taunt users become very common again :]

Hey KuraiTenshi ie THEDARKANGEL! :)

Congratulations man this is a very well built team. In spite of looking like a copypaste of xtra's birdspam, I can clearly see the work you put in making it as solid as possible. What really strikes me is the composition: it is a 3 support+3 winconditions team, which is extremely rare, and usually ineffective. I've recently worked on a pinsir+dnite team and i realised magnezone was quite awful because of the loss of momentum it brings vs zygarde and landorus., however yours is fundamentally different from most HO teams due to the utility araquanid provides as a speedcontrol and anti Ash gren. Drill+Araquanid+magnezone is a solid core on its own, and I really have to stress on its solidity and the insane support it provides. I guess it's also important to point out at the fact you already described: Dnite+Pinsir go together very well, because of eliminating similar checks for each other, but also because Dnite is a lategame sweeper immuned to watershuriken and scarfkartana to some extent.

I just saw your shoutout to ktutGOAT, idk how you managed to tag me by using a different name lol I really loved it :)
So it's my turn to say: I am not sure what to suggest without breaking all that gorgeous synergy. But a real Ktut never considers a team as finished so I actually have something to suggest!!

Knock off->Earthquake

I usually use this set because... pinsir actually only needs flying stabs to sweep through teams. If you set up your rocks and webs, a +2 pinsir return will KO everything except a magearna that can't kill you back, and a tyranitar that is frankly rare atm. Stall is quite common and a knock pinsir can take this shed shell off and allow you not to lose your only stallbreaker vs a counter/BB skarmory. +2 knock does insane damage to magnezone/heatran too:
+2 252 Atk Aerilate Pinsir-Mega Return vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Tapu Koko: 259-306 (92.1 - 108.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock

+2 252 Atk Pinsir-Mega Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Heatran: 229-270 (70.8 - 83.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
+2 252 Atk Pinsir-Mega Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Magnezone: 214-252 (76.1 - 89.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock

not really satisfying vs balance i know but helps a lot vs skarmory



Z Fly+Ice coverage?

Dragonite @ Flyinium Z
Ability: Multiscale
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Fly
- Outrage / Extreme speed / Ice beam / Ice punch / Roost
- Earthquake


I'm not a big fan of Z outrage because it is extremely easy to pivot with magearna to waste the Z and go back landorus. Z fly guarantees kills due to flying being a tremendously spammable move, I also would like to suggest replacing firepunch since you have magnezone, otherwise juste keep firepunch as a steel lure and replace magnezone? I recently have had much success with icebeam dnite because it prevents rocky helmet from weakening you and it does a lot of damage to landorus; tho roost allows you to setup on landorus by removing one ice weakness and preventing stuff like kartana to spamm +1 leafblade until you are in ko range of something like scizor. Dragonite has an incredible movepool!!
Ice punch targets zygarde preventing substitutes after you fly, and netting a ko contrary to icebeam while Espeed kills a weak zygarde before a weak zygarde kills you. lol.

0- SpA Dragonite Ice Beam vs. 252 HP / 24 SpD Landorus-Therian: 272-324 (71.2 - 84.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
252 Atk Dragonite Ice Punch vs. 252 HP / 216+ Def Landorus-Therian: 268-316 (70.1 - 82.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock


Sitrus Berry->Focus sash

Araquanid is just too bulky to waste a sash on it, because the things that threaten to ko it are tapukoko which gives free excadrill, or pinsir which deoesnt care about a liquidation or webs. So I thought a sitrus berry would help you force a greninja out: lemme show you the calc
252 SpA Choice Specs Greninja Dark Pulse vs. 248 HP / 8 SpD Araquanid: 130-154 (38.3 - 45.4%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
it means that if you bring araquanid on rocks (excadrill can't spin rocks from rockyhelmet lando or ferro) you eat a darkpulse, recover 25% so you have at least 54% of your health left: greninja can't 2hko. Aguav berry activates under 25%, which won't happen here :)



I hope this little changes help you, and if they don't, hope you liked them^^ Whatever, this is a really cool team that I'm going to try out because I've wanted to play the excadrill+araquanid+magnezone core in a viable team ! This is gimmick af and solid, I wish you the best of luck in your future builds Kurai Tenshi, keep being creative and you will master the metagame without trouble!
See you :)
It's always awesome to hear from you :] I can see how to many people, Knock Off may seem like a weird suggestion. Pinsir loses what is often considered his crucial coverage at the tradeoff for removing items. However, I can say to these people that it isn't an outlandish option and the "Pinsir's flying stab wins games alone" holds true the higher up you are on ladder, it's pretty funny how different portions of ladder have varying metagames lol. During OLT, top players began running sub > earthquake on Pinsir to set up on and beat Skarmory 1v1 (they only ran counter to hit Pinsir) because of how much stall there was (stall is far from dead btw, it's always a very consistent style and it's run a decent amount on top ladder because of said consistency). I've found most metal birds to be helmet or leftovers for now, but if the meta gets to the point where shed shell Skarmory is spammed again (and I run into Skarmory more than I'd like because top ladder tries to counter common ladder tactics like flyspam >.>), then this is a very viable option. My concern is the high usage of Magearna and decent usage of Tyranitar, so I may try running no QA Pinsir-M if I need to fit Knock onto the set.

In terms of sitrus > sash, I can say for now that sash is amazing for key matchups and situations, like trick room or if the opponent leads with a powerful wallbreaker such as specs/psychium Lele. Ensuring a revenge kill or getting webs up is essential in these matchups in order to win, so I am hesitant to remove the sash. Araquanid actually eats one dark pulse from Ash Gren even after rocks, and then ohko back with leech life. And if Araquanid fails, I have Mimikyu or Multiscale Dragonite. So I think the matchup is okay for now to not require changing out sash.

I agree about dragonium not being too spammable and many people doubling out to something like Magearna, which is frustrating. After running some calcs and imagining how the team would beat hard counters like Zapdos or shed shell Skarm, I really like the idea of Flyinium Z + Outrage + Earthquake. This lets me keep a spammable Z-move, while still breaking fat electrics significantly for teammates to capitalize on. This set is especially effective with Knock Off Pinsir-M, to remove shed shell Skarm while heavily pressuring Celesteela by removing lefties and having a Zone in the back.

Overall I like these suggestions, your deep insight and plentiful experience of the OU ladder and metagame is apparent :]
 

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