Hi everybody, I'm Hammerhead. I wonder around smogon every now and then, and play a bit a PS. Recently I started playing mix and mega after a while, since the last time I played this was last year when it was the OMotM. After starting off my ladder career with a borrowed team (sorry I can't find the person I borrowed it from), I started making my own team, and stumbled across a combination that I think works, but can be very much improved upon. Anyway, let's take a look at the team.
Alright so here's the process I went through building this team
I actually Started with Magearna. I wanted to use this mon because the borrowed team I mentioned before actually used this on the team, but I've made my own adjustments to it to better suit the team. The item it's holding is of course, the venusaurite. Thick fat on this pokemon plus the extra bulk allow this thing to tank like nothing else, now checking threats like kartana at a whim, while also being able to fire back huge amounts of damage in fleur cannon and flash cannon, pivot out with volt switch, and heal up against tanks with pain split. Now I know pain split isn't the most reliable source of recovery, but it's all she's got so yeah. This pokemon was chosen to be the defensive pivot tank of the team because of this.
From magearna, I wanted to use a hard hitting wall-breaker with pinsirite, and I thought, why not go past the pokemon that misses flying coverage the most? Gyrados with the pinisirite finally gets what it's been missing most in flying coverage, and with a dragon dance under it's belt it can be hard to stop. +1 alone can do 80%+ to a Pdon depending on it's spread, and most sets can't actually hit it back to hard because of the intimidate before mega evolving. +1 speed after the boost from pinsirite outspeeds and ohko a LOT of other pokemon. Gyarados was chosen for this reason.
Originally I had actually chosen an aerodactylite Garchomp in this slot, as I thought that a tough claws, speed boosted version of an already strong pokemon would have been pretty good, but it turns out that without more speed boosting, it's just not fast enough to outspeed and get the kills it needs to. Either that or the boosted bulk of this meta prevented it from shining without an SD under its belt. So That's when I turned to swellow.
Swellow's amazing speed tier did not disappoint, as coupled with a salamencite it outspeeds most of the current metagame, and can quickly u-turn it's way out or stay in boomburst/heat wave something into oblivion. I tacked on quick attack for some extra priority in case I needed it for things like opposing glalitite weaviles. I also tried out an alakazite set with air slash instead of quick attack, and while it's not quite as reliable, it's faster and heat wave hits harder on it. It can also copy opposing pokemons abilities and just do some ridiculous things like take an opposing magearna's soul heart and sweep (although depending on the spread it has to crit to ohko with heat wave). I mainly use this pokemon as a lead pivot and a fast revenge killer.
Not much to say about Weavile, just a really solid pokemon that can take on a lot of threats and tanks, revenge kills and out-prioritizes most of the meta. I picked it mainly for the solid priority revenge killing I needed, other wise the other pokemon were as good as dead.
Again not much to say about blissey, just the generic toxic stalling, wish passing cleric that blissey is, with sablenite for added bulk and an very nice touch of magic bounce thrown in. I mainly use this as the special wall of the team, and while I wanted this team to be as offensive as possible, I just couldn't let my entire team be paper thin, so I added this, and with gyarados' intimidate, it greatly walls a lot of threats out.
And lastly we have greninja. I wanted to use this as another fast, hard hitting mon on the special side, mostly because of the lack of special damage I have other than swellow. After looking through all of the available mega stones, I decided on using absolite. The great buff to speed and special attack makes this thing a very potent threat to "fast" threats, such as glalitite weavile and pidgeotite shaymin. The added touch of magic bounce allows for it to stall break most walls and stop hazard set up as well (although I did just recently run into a gyaradosite shuckle). There isn't much more to it then that.
So here are the sets, as I have pretty much already explained why I used these pokemon.
Gyarados @ Pinsirite
Ability: initimidate -> Aerilate
EVs: 4 Hp/252 Atk/252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Return
- Earthquake
- Waterfall
Pretty standard set I must say, nothing too crazy here
Swellow @ Salamencite
Ability: scrappy -> Aerilate
EVs: 4 Atk/ 252 SpAtk/ 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Quick Attack
- Boomburst
- Heat Wave
- U-Turn
Weavile @ Glalitite
Ability: Pressure -> Refrigerate
EVs: 4 HP/ 252 Atk/ 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Fake out
- Return
- Quick Attack
- Night Slash
I chose night slash because knock off is useless in this meta (pretty much anyway)
Blissey @ Sablenite
Ability: Natural Cure -> Magic Bounce
EVs: 252 HP/ 252 Def/ 4 SpDef
Calm Nature
- Heal Bell
- Protect
- Wish
- Toxic
Greninja @ Absolite
Ability: Protean -> Magic Bounce
EVs: 4 HP/ 252 SpAtk/ 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Scald
- Dark Pulse
- Ice beam
- Shadow Sneak
The priority on shadow sneak is mostly so that if I need to revenge kill something else with priority, it can out-speed and kill it.
Magearna @ Venusaurite
Ability: Soul Heart -> Thick Fat
EVs: 252 HP/ 252 Def/ 4 SpAtk
Bold Nature
- Flash Cannon
- Fleur Cannon
- Volt Switch
- Pain Split
Well that's it, If you have any suggestions, then I'm completely open! I don't have anything in terms of replays, sorry to say, but I may update this and change that later.
Alright so here's the process I went through building this team
I actually Started with Magearna. I wanted to use this mon because the borrowed team I mentioned before actually used this on the team, but I've made my own adjustments to it to better suit the team. The item it's holding is of course, the venusaurite. Thick fat on this pokemon plus the extra bulk allow this thing to tank like nothing else, now checking threats like kartana at a whim, while also being able to fire back huge amounts of damage in fleur cannon and flash cannon, pivot out with volt switch, and heal up against tanks with pain split. Now I know pain split isn't the most reliable source of recovery, but it's all she's got so yeah. This pokemon was chosen to be the defensive pivot tank of the team because of this.
From magearna, I wanted to use a hard hitting wall-breaker with pinsirite, and I thought, why not go past the pokemon that misses flying coverage the most? Gyrados with the pinisirite finally gets what it's been missing most in flying coverage, and with a dragon dance under it's belt it can be hard to stop. +1 alone can do 80%+ to a Pdon depending on it's spread, and most sets can't actually hit it back to hard because of the intimidate before mega evolving. +1 speed after the boost from pinsirite outspeeds and ohko a LOT of other pokemon. Gyarados was chosen for this reason.
Originally I had actually chosen an aerodactylite Garchomp in this slot, as I thought that a tough claws, speed boosted version of an already strong pokemon would have been pretty good, but it turns out that without more speed boosting, it's just not fast enough to outspeed and get the kills it needs to. Either that or the boosted bulk of this meta prevented it from shining without an SD under its belt. So That's when I turned to swellow.
Swellow's amazing speed tier did not disappoint, as coupled with a salamencite it outspeeds most of the current metagame, and can quickly u-turn it's way out or stay in boomburst/heat wave something into oblivion. I tacked on quick attack for some extra priority in case I needed it for things like opposing glalitite weaviles. I also tried out an alakazite set with air slash instead of quick attack, and while it's not quite as reliable, it's faster and heat wave hits harder on it. It can also copy opposing pokemons abilities and just do some ridiculous things like take an opposing magearna's soul heart and sweep (although depending on the spread it has to crit to ohko with heat wave). I mainly use this pokemon as a lead pivot and a fast revenge killer.
Not much to say about Weavile, just a really solid pokemon that can take on a lot of threats and tanks, revenge kills and out-prioritizes most of the meta. I picked it mainly for the solid priority revenge killing I needed, other wise the other pokemon were as good as dead.
Again not much to say about blissey, just the generic toxic stalling, wish passing cleric that blissey is, with sablenite for added bulk and an very nice touch of magic bounce thrown in. I mainly use this as the special wall of the team, and while I wanted this team to be as offensive as possible, I just couldn't let my entire team be paper thin, so I added this, and with gyarados' intimidate, it greatly walls a lot of threats out.
And lastly we have greninja. I wanted to use this as another fast, hard hitting mon on the special side, mostly because of the lack of special damage I have other than swellow. After looking through all of the available mega stones, I decided on using absolite. The great buff to speed and special attack makes this thing a very potent threat to "fast" threats, such as glalitite weavile and pidgeotite shaymin. The added touch of magic bounce allows for it to stall break most walls and stop hazard set up as well (although I did just recently run into a gyaradosite shuckle). There isn't much more to it then that.
So here are the sets, as I have pretty much already explained why I used these pokemon.
Gyarados @ Pinsirite
Ability: initimidate -> Aerilate
EVs: 4 Hp/252 Atk/252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Return
- Earthquake
- Waterfall
Pretty standard set I must say, nothing too crazy here
Swellow @ Salamencite
Ability: scrappy -> Aerilate
EVs: 4 Atk/ 252 SpAtk/ 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Quick Attack
- Boomburst
- Heat Wave
- U-Turn
Weavile @ Glalitite
Ability: Pressure -> Refrigerate
EVs: 4 HP/ 252 Atk/ 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Fake out
- Return
- Quick Attack
- Night Slash
I chose night slash because knock off is useless in this meta (pretty much anyway)
Blissey @ Sablenite
Ability: Natural Cure -> Magic Bounce
EVs: 252 HP/ 252 Def/ 4 SpDef
Calm Nature
- Heal Bell
- Protect
- Wish
- Toxic
Greninja @ Absolite
Ability: Protean -> Magic Bounce
EVs: 4 HP/ 252 SpAtk/ 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Scald
- Dark Pulse
- Ice beam
- Shadow Sneak
The priority on shadow sneak is mostly so that if I need to revenge kill something else with priority, it can out-speed and kill it.
Magearna @ Venusaurite
Ability: Soul Heart -> Thick Fat
EVs: 252 HP/ 252 Def/ 4 SpAtk
Bold Nature
- Flash Cannon
- Fleur Cannon
- Volt Switch
- Pain Split
Well that's it, If you have any suggestions, then I'm completely open! I don't have anything in terms of replays, sorry to say, but I may update this and change that later.