SM OU RIP Talonflame

[Hayburner]

BIRDS​

**So I've seen quite a few people making bird spam and decided to make my own. Threw some stuff together then made it to around 1800 in less than an hour so thought I might share **

Teambuilding Process​

Hide

**Started with mega pinsir because I planned the team to be some sort of hyper offense and wanted to switch it up from mega meta. Set is pretty standard, I'm running earthquake over close combat mainly for hitting magearna and mawile.**

**I chose gyarados next to make the flying spam core. I chose gyarados over salamence because gyarados does not need as much support as mence and I was not going to dedicate a slot to magnezone which is preferred with mence**

**Looking at the team from there, the first issue was with skarmory and celesteela, while the second was stall. Banded zygarde helps with breaking those mons and also appreciates the 2 birds breaking fat grasses**

**I chose azelf over excadrill because of its speed tier with taunt. Excadrill is unable to keep rocks off the field if it is led up against a helmet lando which is very annoying for this team**

**Because most of pheromone's counters, such as toxapex, tapu fini are handled very well by the rest of the team, I chose to use a specs variant to help break holes for pinsir or gyarados to clean late game.**

**I chose ash greninja as a way to handle mega meta gross although it needs a small amount of chip damage to ohko because I chose not to go with the specs variant and instead with wave incense to clean weakened teams easier with the holes made by gyarados and co.**

The Team​

Pinsir-Mega @ Pinsirite
Ability: Hyper Cutter
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Return
- Earthquake
- Quick Attack
​

**The centre of the team, either breaks holes, revenge kills or cleans up with quick attack after other members make holes. The standard pinsir set as mentioned before, eq over close combat to hit metagross on switchin as well as magearna and mawile. Pinsir provides the team with a pheromosa answer as well which HO often struggles with.**

Gyarados @ Flyinium Z
Ability: Moxie
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Bounce
- Waterfall
- Earthquake/Taunt
​

**Gyarados has very good synergy with pinsir and they wear each others counters down very easily. Taunt is an option for shutting down defoggers like tapu fini but earthquake is very valuable for hitting steels such as magearna that can potentially stop a sweep. The team generally appreciates taunt more as I also have no hazard control.**

Zygarde @ Choice Band
Ability: Aura Break
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Thousand Arrows
- Outrage
- Toxic
- Extreme Speed
​

**Zygarde helps the team with the stall matchup and provides more priority as the team doesn't have a scarfer. Zygarde is invaluable for breaking mons like celesteela and doing heavy damage to common switchins like tapu fini and lando t, which is why I chose the choice band set. Provides some nice resistances and immunities as well, with having 3 electric weak mons.**

Azelf @ Focus Sash
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Skill Swap
- Explosion
- Taunt
​

**Pretty standard suicide lead set, chosen because it helps keep rocks off the field better than excadrill, but one can use excadrill in this slot as well. Azelf was also chosen for being able to keep up rocks better than exca can against stall with explosion being very helpful. **

Pheromosa @ Choice Specs
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Focus Blast
- Bug Buzz
- Ice Beam
- Hidden Power [Electric]
​

**Pheromosa was chosen to beat mons like lando t and greninja which could be annoying to this team depending on set, as well as being able to Ohko mega meta. I chose choice specs over quiver dance for the immediate power which the team appreciates. HP electric was chosen for the last slot in order to hit toxapex or tapu fini that try and switch in, as well as being a gyarados answer as it can be quite threatening. **

Greninja-Ash @ Wave Incense
Ability: Battle Bond
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Water Shuriken
- Hydro Pump
- Dark Pulse
- Spikes/Taunt
​

**Ash Greninja is the usual late game cleaner after pheromosa, zygarde, gyarados and mpinsir are done breaking holes. This is why I chose splash plate, as too many choice mons could be annoying in late game situations. The last move is up to personal preference, and is barely clicked anyways. Ash greninja provides a pheromosa check, a mega metagross check, and adding more priority which is greatly appreciated with no scarfer.**

Conclusion​

**The team has some flaws of course, but generally you can just overload most teams with these mons. So far on the ladder only lost due to bad matchup once, and a few to hax made it to 1836 in one day then stopped. Some other options to consider are changing it to a webs team and using smeargle over azelf.
Threatlist:
MIMIKYU: yea you honestly might as well click X
Trick room Magearna: If it gets a trick room up, nothing stops it. So just don't let it get a trick room up.
Talonflame: for some reason this basically just wins
Tapu koko: very annoying to play around but it doesn't come in on much.
Ill add more later probably.**

Importable

Pinsir-Mega @ Pinsirite
Ability: Hyper Cutter
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Return
- Earthquake
- Quick Attack

Gyarados @ Flyinium Z
Ability: Moxie
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Bounce
- Waterfall
- Earthquake/Taunt

Zygarde @ Choice Band
Ability: Aura Break
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Thousand Arrows
- Outrage
- Toxic
- Extreme Speed

Azelf @ Focus Sash
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Skill Swap
- Explosion
- Taunt

Pheromosa @ Choice Specs
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Focus Blast
- Bug Buzz
- Ice Beam
- Hidden Power [Electric]

Greninja-Ash @ Wave Incense
Ability: Battle Bond
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Water Shuriken
- Hydro Pump
- Dark Pulse
- Spikes/Taunt

 

[Leo]

Hi, cool team Hayburner! I don't really play much HO so I'm just gonna make a couple of changes here and there. First of all, Rapid Spin>HP Electric. Having HP Electric as an option to hit Pex and Fini for Gren is nice but I really think you need some sort of emergency hazard control in case you don't manage to keep the momentum and your opp gets rocks up. Gyarados really apreciates being at full when setting up because it can live some hits due to its natural bulk+typing (e.g. Fini's Moonblast does ~35 and you avoid getting sniped by Bullet Punch/Water Shuriken after taking 2 hits) and Pinsir can avoid the OHKO from Meta's Ice Punch and Zapdos' Discharge at full. Next, on Zygarde's set I'd run Superpower>Toxic, mainly because locking yourself into Outrage to hurt Chansey can be annoying from time to time and makes the Stall matchup a bit shaky in case your opp sacks something and then hits Zygarde with a Moonblast from Clef and later traps it with Dug. Alternatively you could run Iron Tail to snipe Clefable on the switch, up to you although SPower also hits Ferrothorn and Tail hits Bulu
Hope this helps :]
e: I'm a big fan of non-choiced ninja on these kind of offenses but I think Taunt is the superior option as a last move. Keeping spikes up is v difficult when the main switchin to ninja learns Defog, Taunt is just more versatile imo and helps vs Stall

 

[MFJK]

Hello Hayburner,

Really nice team! However, I noticed that Tapu Lele (Choice Scarf in particular) is a big pain for your team since it can spam Psychic against your team which will do many damages to most Pokemons in your team and use Moonblast against Ash-Gren. Tapu Koko is, in my opinion the biggest threat of your team since you don't have a really good way of playing around it and it can just spam Thunderbolt and use HP Ice against Zygarde. Same to Pheromosa even though you can kill it with M-Pinsir and Gyarados. M-Charizard X is also a big threat since it can find a setup opportunity on a Bug Buzz/HP Electric locked Pheromosa and then destroy your team.

•

-->

Flyinium Z Autotomize Celesteela is pretty cool because it gives something that can setup on Tapu Lele and other Fairy Types. It can also setup on M-Metagross and KO it with Fire Blast after some previous damages. Even on Thunder Punch versions since it can take one. Having something that can setup on things like Garchomp and kill Salamence is also greatly appreciated. Also, Celesteela isn't weak to rocks contrary to Gyarados. The downside of this change is that you are now a lot weaker to M-Charizard X. That's why I propose you to run Earthquake with 84 Atk EVs and a Rash Nature to 2HKO M-Charizard X allowing you to prevent it from setting up too much while not using your Z-Move and then, Revenge Kill it with your priorities.

•

Fist Plate Rapid Spin > Choice Specs

Fist Plate Rapid Spin Pheromosa is fine because it gives you a Spinner which is really important in a Flying Spam Team. It also has the advantage of not being Choice Locked so, not giving setup opportunities to some Pokemons depending of the move on which it is locked. It also gives you another Offensive pivot allowing you to get more momentum and giving free setup opportunities to Celesteela and M-Pinsir. Its Fist Plate allows you to bluff a Choice Item and kill some Pokemons that would want to setup on you. With that, you can more easily play around Tapu Koko and M-Charizard X (which is OHKOed by a Fist Plate boosted High Jump Kick after some previous damages).

I also agree with Leooo_33 concerning Superpower > Toxic on Zygarde.

Calcs

84 Atk Celesteela Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Charizard-Mega-X: 146-172 (49.1 - 57.9%) -- 94.9% chance to 2HKO
252 Atk Fist Plate Pheromosa High Jump Kick vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Charizard-Mega-X: 241-285 (81.1 - 95.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO​

​

Importable

Pinsir-Mega @ Pinsirite
Ability: Hyper Cutter
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Return
- Earthquake
- Quick Attack

Celesteela @ Flyinium Z
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 84 Atk / 252 SpA / 172 Spe
Rash Nature
- Fire Blast
- Air Slash
- Earthquake
- Autotomize

Zygarde @ Choice Band
Ability: Aura Break
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Thousand Arrows
- Outrage
- Superpower
- Extreme Speed

Azelf @ Focus Sash
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Skill Swap
- Explosion
- Taunt

Pheromosa @ Fist Plate
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
- High Jump Kick
- U-turn
- Ice Beam
- Rapid Spin

Greninja-Ash @ Wave Incense
Ability: Battle Bond
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Water Shuriken
- Hydro Pump
- Dark Pulse
- Spikes/Taunt​

​

I hope I helped. Good luck ^_^

 

[Hayburner]

Hello Hayburner,

Really nice team! However, I noticed that Tapu Lele (Choice Scarf in particular) is a big pain for your team since it can spam Psychic against your team which will do many damages to most Pokemons in your team and use Moonblast against Ash-Gren. Tapu Koko is, in my opinion the biggest threat of your team since you don't have a really good way of playing around it and it can just spam Thunderbolt and use HP Ice against Zygarde. Same to Pheromosa even though you can kill it with M-Pinsir and Gyarados. M-Charizard X is also a big threat since it can find a setup opportunity on a Bug Buzz/HP Electric locked Pheromosa and then destroy your team.

•

-->

Flyinium Z Autotomize Celesteela is pretty cool because it gives something that can setup on Tapu Lele and other Fairy Types. It can also setup on M-Metagross and KO it with Fire Blast after some previous damages. Even on Thunder Punch versions since it can take one. Having something that can setup on things like Garchomp and kill Salamence is also greatly appreciated. Also, Celesteela isn't weak to rocks contrary to Gyarados. The downside of this change is that you are now a lot weaker to M-Charizard X. That's why I propose you to run Earthquake with 84 Atk EVs and a Rash Nature to 2HKO M-Charizard X allowing you to prevent it from setting up too much while not using your Z-Move and then, Revenge Kill it with your priorities.

•

Fist Plate Rapid Spin > Choice Specs

Fist Plate Rapid Spin Pheromosa is fine because it gives you a Spinner which is really important in a Flying Spam Team. It also has the advantage of not being Choice Locked so, not giving setup opportunities to some Pokemons depending of the move on which it is locked. It also gives you another Offensive pivot allowing you to get more momentum and giving free setup opportunities to Celesteela and M-Pinsir. Its Fist Plate allows you to bluff a Choice Item and kill some Pokemons that would want to setup on you. With that, you can more easily play around Tapu Koko and M-Charizard X (which is OHKOed by a Fist Plate boosted High Jump Kick after some previous damages).

I also agree with Leooo_33 concerning Superpower > Toxic on Zygarde.

Calcs

84 Atk Celesteela Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Charizard-Mega-X: 146-172 (49.1 - 57.9%) -- 94.9% chance to 2HKO
252 Atk Fist Plate Pheromosa High Jump Kick vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Charizard-Mega-X: 241-285 (81.1 - 95.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO​

​

Importable

Pinsir-Mega @ Pinsirite
Ability: Hyper Cutter
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Return
- Earthquake
- Quick Attack

Celesteela @ Flyinium Z
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 84 Atk / 252 SpA / 172 Spe
Rash Nature
- Fire Blast
- Air Slash
- Earthquake
- Autotomize

Zygarde @ Choice Band
Ability: Aura Break
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Thousand Arrows
- Outrage
- Superpower
- Extreme Speed

Azelf @ Focus Sash
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Skill Swap
- Explosion
- Taunt

Pheromosa @ Fist Plate
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
- High Jump Kick
- U-turn
- Ice Beam
- Rapid Spin

Greninja-Ash @ Wave Incense
Ability: Battle Bond
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Water Shuriken
- Hydro Pump
- Dark Pulse
- Spikes/Taunt​

​

I hope I helped. Good luck ^_^

Tbh I'm not very worried about scarf tapu lele as it's rarely used anymore and in general isn't a very good set. Spin is of course appreciated but fist plate spin pheromosa gives a free defog to tapu fini any time it tries to spin and I'm definitely not a fan of that which is why I'm specs HP electric. Gyarados is probably the main Mon this team is geared to win with so I'm not changing it and also celesteela can lose to scarf lele if it's rash anyways. I appreciate the rate and I understand the points you're making I just don't think they fit.
Side note: specs phero beats koko from a much higher percent, fist plate makes it harder to play around if anything.

252 Atk Fist Plate Pheromosa High Jump Kick vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Tapu Koko: 152-179 (54 - 63.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ SpA Choice Specs Pheromosa Focus Blast vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Tapu Koko: 213-251 (75.8 - 89.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ SpA Choice Specs Pheromosa Ice Beam vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Tapu Koko: 213-251 (75.8 - 89.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Hi, cool team Hayburner! I don't really play much HO so I'm just gonna make a couple of changes here and there. First of all, Rapid Spin>HP Electric. Having HP Electric as an option to hit Pex and Fini for Gren is nice but I really think you need some sort of emergency hazard control in case you don't manage to keep the momentum and your opp gets rocks up. Gyarados really apreciates being at full when setting up because it can live some hits due to its natural bulk+typing (e.g. Fini's Moonblast does ~35 and you avoid getting sniped by Bullet Punch/Water Shuriken after taking 2 hits) and Pinsir can avoid the OHKO from Meta's Ice Punch and Zapdos' Discharge at full. Next, on Zygarde's set I'd run Superpower>Toxic, mainly because locking yourself into Outrage to hurt Chansey can be annoying from time to time and makes the Stall matchup a bit shaky in case your opp sacks something and then hits Zygarde with a Moonblast from Clef and later traps it with Dug. Alternatively you could run Iron Tail to snipe Clefable on the switch, up to you although SPower also hits Ferrothorn and Tail hits Bulu
Hope this helps :]
e: I'm a big fan of non-choiced ninja on these kind of offenses but I think Taunt is the superior option as a last move. Keeping spikes up is v difficult when the main switchin to ninja learns Defog, Taunt is just more versatile imo and helps vs Stall

I agree with adding superpower to zygarde (tbh didn't even know it learned it) and I might try and fit spin somewhere on phero, but it really doesn't have room. I will test with it both ways however, and also I usually use on taunt on the Gren I was just playing around with spikes and taunt gyara, taunt is the better option. Appreciate the rate :]