so i dipped out of VGC '15 after nationals and decided to play a few games of '16 and i think off the bat i found something relatively strong;
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Liepard @ Focus Sash
Ability: Prankster
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Fake Out
- Foul Play
- Fake Tears
- Encore
Xerneas @ Power Herb
Ability: Fairy Aura
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Geomancy
- Moonblast
- Dazzling Gleam
- Protect
Salamence @ Salamencite
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Dragon Pulse
- Hyper Voice
- Flamethrower
- Protect
obviously fake out + geomancy is no joke, and xerneas has the bulk to avoid most OHKOs from things especially when liepard's fake out essentially allows you to choose what you get hit by. further, fake tears supports xern by making its dazzling gleam do absurd damage both before and after geomancy boosts and just makes it really hard for things to deal. mence covers a lot of the issues that xerneas has like its weakness to ferrothorn and p-don via flamethrower (which will kill any ferro variant after fake tears) and intimidate. mence also has strong synergy with liepard getting good mileage out of fake tears boosting the damage output of hyper voice, and outspeeds m-ray and can KO with dragon pulse.
off the top of my head, this core is a little p-ogre weak, as ogre has the bulk to withstand a lot of these attacks and the raw power to back its presence up, as well as making ferrothorn immune to fire attacks which gives both xern and mence a lot of trouble. something like p-don in the back may alleviate those problems, not sure. i'm also not certain if xerneas could be optimized more in just about every way, because it does have tremendous bulk and i'm not sure what relevant numbers it hits before/after the geo boost, so i'm sure that could be better.
but i wanted to start a discussion about powerful cores you've found in the new meta opening with this one. hit me with those hot opinions
other cores:
Liepard @ Focus Sash
Ability: Prankster
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Fake Out
- Foul Play
- Fake Tears
- Encore
Xerneas @ Power Herb
Ability: Fairy Aura
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Geomancy
- Moonblast
- Dazzling Gleam
- Protect
Salamence @ Salamencite
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Dragon Pulse
- Hyper Voice
- Flamethrower
- Protect
obviously fake out + geomancy is no joke, and xerneas has the bulk to avoid most OHKOs from things especially when liepard's fake out essentially allows you to choose what you get hit by. further, fake tears supports xern by making its dazzling gleam do absurd damage both before and after geomancy boosts and just makes it really hard for things to deal. mence covers a lot of the issues that xerneas has like its weakness to ferrothorn and p-don via flamethrower (which will kill any ferro variant after fake tears) and intimidate. mence also has strong synergy with liepard getting good mileage out of fake tears boosting the damage output of hyper voice, and outspeeds m-ray and can KO with dragon pulse.
off the top of my head, this core is a little p-ogre weak, as ogre has the bulk to withstand a lot of these attacks and the raw power to back its presence up, as well as making ferrothorn immune to fire attacks which gives both xern and mence a lot of trouble. something like p-don in the back may alleviate those problems, not sure. i'm also not certain if xerneas could be optimized more in just about every way, because it does have tremendous bulk and i'm not sure what relevant numbers it hits before/after the geo boost, so i'm sure that could be better.
but i wanted to start a discussion about powerful cores you've found in the new meta opening with this one. hit me with those hot opinions
other cores:
Vengeance417 said:[Ho-oh, Groudon, Latios]
Ho-Oh @ Charcoal
Ability: Pressure
Level: 50
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 132 HP / 252 Atk / 124 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Sacred Fire
- Brave Bird
- Tailwind
- Protect
Groudon-Primal @ Red Orb
Ability: Desolate Land
Level: 50
EVs: 180 HP / 252 SpA / 76 Spe
Quiet Nature
- Earth Power
- Overheat
- Rock Slide
- Protect
Latios @ Expert Belt
Ability: Levitate
Level: 50
EVs: 236 SpA / 20 SpDef / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Psychic/Psyshock
- Grass Knot
- Protect
Vengaence417 said:Mienshao @ Focus Sash
Ability: Reckless
Level: 50
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Fake Out
- High Jump Kick/Low Kick
- Knock Off/Rock Slide
- Wide Guard
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Crobat @ Mental Herb
Ability: Inner Focus
Level: 50
EVs: 76 HP / 212 Def / 220 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Taunt
- Quick Guard
- Tailwind
- Super Fang
H-C said:Xerneas @ Power Herb
Ability: Fairy Aura
Level: 50
EVs: 92 HP / 252 SpA / 164 Spe
Modest Nature
- Geomancy
- Dazzling Gleam
- Protect
- Focus Blast
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Altaria-Mega @ Altarianite
Ability: Natural Cure
Level: 50
EVs: 108 HP / 252 SpA / 148 Spe
Modest Nature
- Protect
- Psych Up
- Hyper Voice
- Fire Blast
Here's a core I really love, it's quite a standard Xerneas set but what comes next to it is Altaria. You can use Psych Up on the same turn that Xerneas uses protect or Geomancy and then you have access to the strongest special attackers in the game w/ a huge boosted +2 Fairy Aura Pixilate Hyper Voice. The EV's are still to be worked on but those give a huge bulk to both Xerneas and Altaria while outspeeding scarf Lando-t as Altaria at +2 and you outspeed max speed smeargle as Xerneas.
ElegyOfVGC said:Yveltal @ Black Glasses / Life Orb
Ability: Dark Aura
Level: 50
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Dark Pulse
- Sucker Punch
- Oblivion Wing / Tailwind / Taunt
- Protect
Mawile-Mega @ Mawilite
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
EVs: 144 HP / 252 Atk / 108 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Play Rough
- Iron Head
- Sucker Punch
- Protect
This core is pretty simple, really. Doubling up into either primal with Dark Pulse from Yveltal + Sucker Punch from Mawile, or anything unresisted really, almost always gets the kill. The biggest threats to Yveltal, Xerneas and Kangaskhan, are neutralized by Mawile. The main threats to this core pretty much includes smeargle lol. Xerneas with set up support can also pose a threat IF you don't kill the support turn one, which is usually pretty easy given the nature of this core. Mawile's evs let it outspeed Kang under tailwind, you can change them however you need to, I just copy pasted this from a team. Sucker Punch from Yveltal still does a good chunk to spdef things that don't resist it, such as Kyogre. You can run hasty if you want to power it up a bit more.
Basically this is a dark spam core, and Mawile beats the things that beats usual dark spam.
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