SM OU USUM Psyspam Offense (Peaked #1 by BTB & Ayevon, 2100+ ELO)





USUM PSYSPAM OFFENSE


Introduction

I wasn't planning to do an RMT for a while because these things take so long to do but I was convinced to do this by my man BHARATH_THEBEST after him and Ayevon peaked number one with this yesterday. They were looking for a good team to ladder with and I passed them this Psychic Spam which I made a while back but adjusted recently for the new metagame along with the new tutor moves that USUM gave us. This team has worked well for me ever since I made it and still holds up in the current metagame. In general, I feel like Mega Zam is often an underrated threat that can do extremely well given proper support, which this team does.

Proof of Peak


Teambuilding Process


Any good psyspam team will of course start with these two mons. Alakazam is a huge threat, and like I mentioned before, is often underrated and overlooked in teambuilding. This leads to a lot of builds being extremely weak to him with the only reliable answer being revenge killing with a scarfer (or dodging focus miss). The problem I think a lot of psyspams have is using Lele as a scarfer to complement Zam when in reality it is much better to use Lele as a breaker since it is able to muscle through pretty much every psychic resist in the game. This is why I decided to use a CM Z-move Lele which helps against fatter builds and is able to weaken Zam's checks for late game cleaning. Of course Lele's psychic terrain is amazing for this team protecting zam from being revenged by priority and turning its Psychic into a nuke.


The next pokemon added was scarf Kartana, which to me is the best scarfer in the tier currently. It is still able to hit really hard because of its natural attack stat and becomes incredibly threatening late game with beast boost. This fit particularly well here as it revenge kills most threats to the team reliably including Tapu Koko and is protected from dangerous priority like Ash Gren's Water Shuriken with terrain support. Also, it shares many of the same checks as Zam and Lele so collectively they are able to wear down the things each other hate. The addition of Knock Off to this mon's movepool helps neuter psychic checks like Celesteela on the switch. Scarf Kart also gives the team fast defog support which is appreciated on any offense.



The final offensive mon on this team is Ash Greninja. It was added mainly to give the team a strong form of priority as well as spikes support which specifically helps Zam clean late game. In addition, Ash-Gren is able to invite in Toxapex which gives the team pretty much free switch ins to both Psychic types. Gren acts as the teams fire resist, which while not ideal, gives the team a semi-switch in to Heatran before Zam is able to mega and trace Flash Fire. Also, Gren will usually force in AV Magearna and is able to chunk it with Hydro, helping Lele and Zam break it later in the game.



From here, I decided to move on to the small defensive core of the team starting with defensive Lando. I still needed a rocker and momentum to get in the offensive threats, since I wouldn't call any of them bulky by any stretch, and Lando does this better than any mon in OU. It is able to chip down most of the mons that really threaten this team with Rocky Helmet putting them in range to be revenged by the other team members. This includes threatening Megas like Lopunny, Pinsir, and Medicham and also is able to handle every Zygarde apart from D-Drake.



The final member of the team is another defensive pivot in AV magearna. This also provides momentum with volt switch and is a great blanket check to most every special attacker in the meta. AV gear is a great defensive partner to Lando-T and both still provide decent offensive pressure as well due to their naturally high attacking stats. AV Magnezone was also considered and tested here since it of course has incredible synergy with Zam Lele and Tana but the problem was it made the team much too weak to many common threats currently in OU. A couple that come to mind are Greninja, special Hoopa, set up Gear with fighting move etc.


Set Analysis


Alakazam-Mega @ Alakazite
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Psychic
- Focus Blast
- Shadow Ball
- Hidden Power [Fire]/Dazzling Gleam
The EV spread for Alakazam is standard, Max SpAtk and Max Speed with a Timid Nature. The pre-mega ability should always be Magic Guard to prevent hazard damage until you need to mega. Trace post-mega has a lot of great applications in the current meta including the ability to switch into Heatran with Flash Fire and healing on Pex thanks to Regen. It also makes the rain matchup decent with its ability to trace Swift Swim. I think 4 attack Mega Zam is the best way to go. Psychic for stab, Shadow Ball to hit psychic types like Latis and Mew, and Focus Blast to miss vs. Steel types are all very common. The final move chosen was Hidden Power Fire as this allows you to hit Scizor as well as giving you a more reliable move to finish off Celesteela, Magearna, and Ferrothorn since Focus Blast is the worst move of all time. This is what was used during the peak but I think Dazzling Gleam also has a lot of merit for the stall matchup. The way most stall games go leaves Chansey incredibly weakened within the first few turns due to Lele, so Mega Sableye becomes the only real switch in to Zam. Dgleam would give you a way to deal with this mon.



Tapu Lele @ Psychium Z
Ability: Psychic Surge
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Calm Mind
- Psyshock
- Moonblast
- Hidden Power [Fire]
This is easily my favorite Lele set to use at the moment. Once again max SpAtk and max Speed should be self-explanatory. Timid is needed to outspeed offensive Landorus and Zygardes (since these run ada 99.9% of the time). It is well known that Lele is one of the best breakers in the tier, but specs faces huge issues atm with Tyranitar being so popular. It really limits its effectiveness in these matchups because you lose your Lele to Pursuit if you ever click your best stab move. Calm Mind on the other hand takes advantage of Lele's ability to force switches and +1 Shattered Psyche is pretty much a free kill. Even to the bulkiest steels you are doing like 70+ with this move in terrain which opens up both Kartana and Alakazam to run through the opponent's team late game. Psyshock is used over Psychic pretty much only because of Chansey. The drop of power on the z-move is somewhat noticeable, but not enough to give up being able to hit the fat blob. In particular this set does very well vs stall because it is able to hit pretty much every mon incredibly hard and gets a free CM on the Sableye protect. Moonblast to hit dark types and HP Fire in the last slot to hit steel types. It is important to know that +1 z does way more to steel types than HP fire though, so keep that in mind when using this set. Itn is usually never a bad idea to chunk the fat steel with Z for other team members.



Kartana @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Leaf Blade
- Knock Off
- Sacred Sword
- Defog
Scarf Kartana benefits from Tapu Lele's ability to break through opponent's steel types making cleaning with Leaf Blade very easy with Beast Boost. Besides cleaning, Kartana is just such a good revenge killer because of its natural attack and good physical bulk. This means it is able to tank most priority relatively easily. This bulk and good typing also allows it to come in pretty freely on popular passive mons like Ferrothorn and Chansey, as well as switching in once to big offensive threats like Band Tar and Mega Pert. Max Atk and Speed of course. Leaf Blade is the most spammable stab move and Sacred Sword hits steel types. Knock Off is invaluable to this team and should not be replaced. The main way to beat Celesteela is to knock it off on the switch and neuter it preventing it from keeping itself healthy. Knock is also very nice for taking Zapdos' lefties and revenging things like Blacephalon. The final moveslot is Defog, which is amazing on Scarf Kartana because of the amount of switches that it forces. This being a very offensive build, you normally will only need to defog maybe once per game and Kart does this very reliably.



Greninja-Ash @ Choice Specs
Ability: Battle Bond
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Spikes
- Water Shuriken
- Hydro Pump
- Dark Pulse
This mon I'm not going to talk too much about because I went into a lot of its role in the teambuilding section. The set is incredibly standard but that's because it is so good at what it does. Again, max SpAtk and max Speed. Spikes support for this team is great for wearing down switch ins to Lele and Zam such as AV Magearna (this is the biggest one that comes to mind). Hydro and Dark Pulse for strong stabs and Water Shuriken for strong priority. One of the best parts of partnering Gren with Lele and Zam is its ability to force in Toxapex. This team takes advantage of that fat piece of shit really well, since whenever it comes in to prevent your transformation you get practically free switches into either of your Psychic types. Ever since the start of SM this has been one of the best win conditions in the tier and it still is. On offenses like this you are kind of hindering yourself by not using Ash Gren.



Landorus-Therian @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 248 HP / 200 Def / 60 Spe
Impish Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- U-turn
Defensive Lando has been the best pivot in OU for years so he finds his way onto a lot of my more offensive builds. The EV spread mostly just maximizes the physical bulk, but the 60 speed EV's are used to speed creep other Landorus. Honestly, I can see running even more than this because being faster than other defensive Lando gives you such a huge advantage in the battle. This speed creep does not significantly affect your ability to take hits so I don't see a reason not to do it. Lando provides the team with a ground and electric immunity as well as Stealth Rocks. Earthquake still hits hard despite no investment and HP Ice allows you to be a better check to Zygarde, Garchomp, and other Landorus. U-turn is invaluable to get in the heavy hitters freely. Rocky Helmet is used on this team over Leftovers. This is mainly because the team does not have proper switch-ins to a lot of the prominent physical threats in the tier, so the helmet chip damage helps to wear them down into range of the other members. The two mons that come to mind here would be Mega Lop and Mega Pinsir although neither threaten the team too much because of Zam in the case of Lopunny and terrain in the case of Pinsir.



Magearna @ Assault Vest
Ability: Soul-Heart
EVs: 248 HP / 52 Def / 208 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 20 Spe
- Fleur Cannon
- Iron Head
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Volt Switch
This AV Magearna moveset is pretty standard for the most part apart from the EV spread. 248 HP with 52 Defense investment allows Gear to always live two specs Psyshocks from Tapu Lele after rocks and a spike. The rest is put into Spdef to take special hits as well as possible. Iron Head is used over Flash Cannon in order to check opposing double dance Magearna as they otherwise just use you as set-up bait. Because of this, a Sassy nature is used in order to not lose power on any of your attacks. Also the speed IV's allow you to underspeed Celesteela which allows you to volt out after the Steela attempts to leech seed preventing it from recovering. This is particularly important on this team because Steela can be very problematic to break through, so keeping it low is incredibly important. Hidden Power Fire can probably be Ice Beam on this team tbh because Scizor is not much of a problem with terrain and HP Fire on both Psychic types. It is nice however to prevent hazard stacking from Ferrothorn since this team is very spikes weak.


How to Deal With Problematic Mons/Matchups

1. Celesteela- I want to talk about this first because it seems very difficult to break, but in reality if you understand the way the team works it is very beatable. Step one to beating Steela is knocking it off with Kartana on the switch. This makes the game 10x easier. Secondly, use Magearna's speed to your advantage; slow volt out to prevent it from getting leech seed recover. Thirdly, nuke it with +1 Z from Lele. Even if this doesn't kill it is almost always worth it to chunk the Steela with the Z after it has lost its lefties. After this it won't be able to switch into either Zam or Kartana and cleaning with both mons becomes very easy.

2. Stall- The stall matchup is not the best but depending on the build it is certainly beatable, especially on ladder when most stall players will beat themselves if you give them long enough. The idea here is to lead Lele and CM on Sabelye's Protect and then again on the switch out. Now +2 Psyshock will do 80ish to Chansey and it is pretty much forced to Toxic you. Now you either get to kill the Chansey or something else but either way they lose their main switch in to Ash-Gren which means it is going to run through the six. Like I said though, this doesn't work against some other stall variants that use things like Alolan Muk for Lele. Those matchups are extremely difficult and generally relies on you outplaying pursuits which is not ideal by any means.

3. Big Breakers (like Pinsir for example)- Pretty much the idea here is you will lose a mon when these things come in but use Psychic terrain to your advantage as well as helmet chip from Landorus. This will make revenging from Zam very easy and because of the offensive nature of the team you are normally able to keep mons like this from coming in freely.

4. AV Bulu- This mon is so good omg. I love AV Bulu and it is for sure a threat to this team because it is the one thing that is hard to wear down with Lele. If you leave it in Bulu is just going to Horn Leech all of its health back. The bright spot is Psyshock still is doing a lot and you can keep it relatively low with helmet damage to eventually put it in range of +1 Z-move which does about 80. But yeah don't CM the first time or you won't kill and just lose Lele for nothing.


Replays
So if you want to see this team in action I recommend checking out the YouTube content by Smogon's very own Dokkerich since pretty much all of this peak was uploaded by him. I'll link some of the vids here just be aware that BTB is the king of shittalk so if you were in one of the games don't take it personal :]



Conclusion

This team is a very fun Psychic Spam that really does a good job of showcasing Mega Alakazam. Thanks to BTB and Ayevon for peaking with this and let me know if there is anything you would change to help improve the team. Shoutouts to Sealette, Insult, Suapah, and DenisTheMenace who helped with the peak as well and to the Den Of Thieves which is the best mons discord around :]. Also, I did this on my last RMT as well, but I do have a YouTube channel of my own so if anyone is feeling generous stop by and leave a sub. The import for the team is down below. Thanks for checking this out!

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYbBlTlQYiWgLDLG7PInhoQ.

Alakazam-Mega @ Alakazite
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Psychic
- Focus Blast
- Shadow Ball
- Hidden Power [Fire]

Tapu Lele @ Psychium Z
Ability: Psychic Surge
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Calm Mind
- Psyshock
- Moonblast
- Hidden Power [Fire]

Kartana @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Leaf Blade
- Knock Off
- Sacred Sword
- Defog

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

Landorus-Therian @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 248 HP / 200 Def / 60 Spe
Impish Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- U-turn

Magearna @ Assault Vest
Ability: Soul-Heart
EVs: 248 HP / 52 Def / 208 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 20 Spe
- Fleur Cannon
- Iron Head
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Volt Switch
 
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Hey UltraBallz, that's a great team you got there! I've faced it plenty times on the ladder and it's been pretty scary to face. It can handle most matchup if played well but there still are some problematic mons that can trouble this team. Outside of the aforementioned Celesteela, Tapu Bulu, M-Pinsir and Stall matchups, there are also some mons like Volcarona which can get a set-up opportunity on Magearna and is hardly revenge killed unless it's severely weakened (especially if the Psychic Terrain is active as you can't Shuriken with Ash-Gren), Magnezone which can trap Kartana and kind of force 50/50s on Magearna and Scarf Blacephalon which hardly has a switch-in (gren is 2HKOed by FBlast nad 3HKOed by Shadow Ball) and is only revenge killed by Scarf Kartana's Knock Off and Ash-Gren's Water Shuriken (which doesn't work under Psychic Terrain) and is even more threatening when paired with things like AV Bulu and Defensive Lando-T. Some set tweaks can help dealing with these problems for the most part but there are also a couple of alternative variants that I'll leave which cover some matchups. Without further ado, here are my suggestions:

- On this mon, I'd suggest you to run Knock Off as your 4th move over HP Fire / Dazzling Gleam. It's a very cool lure for things like AV Magearna and Tapu Bulu, Mantine, Chansey and Celesteela coming in on it to remove their items, making Lele's job in breaking even easier.

- On this mon, I'd really suggest you to run Leftovers > Rocky Helmet in order to have a more durable answer to physical attackers which is, imo, more important than the cheap damages rocky helmet provides.

- On Magearna, you could possibly reduce your speed IVs to 16 in order to underspeed Chansey and thus, have a free switchin on something that can threaten it. Also, you could try Explosion > HP Fire which is super useful to surprise Volcaronas (puts them in Shuriken / Kartana range).

Alakazam-Mega @ Alakazite
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Psychic
- Focus Blast
- Shadow Ball
- Knock Off

Landorus-Therian @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 248 HP / 200 Def / 60 Spe
Impish Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- U-turn

Magearna @ Assault Vest
Ability: Soul-Heart
EVs: 248 HP / 52 Def / 208 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 16 Spe
- Fleur Cannon
- Iron Head
- Explosion
- Volt Switch

~~
->
- This is an alternative change which is super useful to improve the team's matchup against mons like Blacephalon, Volcarona, Keldeo, Hawlucha, M-Lopunny, M-Mawile, and other mons as well as giving you a Toxic Spikes immunity. However, this makes you lose offensive pressure for mons like M-Pinsir, Tapu Lele and Zygarde among other things but they can all be played around through smart plays and you still have some answers to these. The set I'd advise you to run is the Payapa Berry set with Toxic Spikes in order to deal with Psychium Z Volcarona and to poison stuffs through switchin.

->
- This is another alternative change which should be used alongside Toxapex as it covers some of the weaknesses this change creates. However, if you choose it with Mag, then it should be an Eject Button set to help Mag trapping better and just giving momentum to the team. Mag is very useful here to trap M-Scizor, Kartana and Celesteela which can trouble the team (especially the latter two) as well as giving some more insurance vs mons like M-Pinsir, and some Fairy Types, as well as weakening AV Magearna. However, you lose the bulk provided by AV Magearna, leaving you weaker to mons like Lele, M-Zam and M-Diancie but none of them is unbeatable for the team and they can be played around through smart plays.

Toxapex @ Payapa Berry
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Def / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Scald
- Haze
- Recover
- Toxic Spikes

OR

Toxapex @ Eject Button
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Def / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Scald
- Haze
- Recover
- Toxic Spikes

(if you choose it with Mag)

Magnezone @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Magnet Pull
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Thunderbolt
- Volt Switch
- Flash Cannon
- Hidden Power [Fire]


~~

That's all for my rate. It's been a pretty fun team to rate. It's now up to you to choose whether you prefer the first variant, the second, or the one with Mag. There still are some threats like M-Pinsir, Volcarona and Hawlucha which can still pose troubles to the team but I think I at least gave you some more ways to play around them. Hope I helped and congrats on showcase!
 
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