Hello fellow pokémon lovers! I have been roaming for quite some time in the monotype format and I just realized I never posted a rmt, so here I go today with a flying team! If there's anything that should be revamped concerning the form of this post, please, let me know :-) !
The Team :
Metallica (Skarmory) @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Sturdy
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD
Impish Nature
- Iron Head
- Roost
- Whirlwind
- Stealth Rock
I started the team with skarmory as it is a great physical wall. Typewise, steel grants it a neutrality to ice and rock, which enable him to make physical attackers like scarf terrakion, m-pinsir, scizor, (m-)tyranitar, garchomp, dragonite, mamoswine and many more fade to black. I personally prefer skarmory over celesteela for whom the bell tolls. That is mainly because I value the recovery in the form of roost which celesteela typically lacks, having to rely on leech seed and leftovers, enabling skarmory to better seek and destroy the aforementioned attackers. Additionally, whirlwind phazes the physical setup sweepers efficiently while rocky helmet punishes u-turn spam. Another up for skarmory is his ability to run either stealth rock, spikes or defog. Since I play flying, we will more than likely run double defog so spikes spam seems a bit counterproductive. I chose stealth rock mainly because sturdy allows me to set it up at least once every game even vs types skarmory is weak to, namely fire and electric. Sad but true, skarmory lacks a bit of offensive presence. The attacking option I prefer is iron head for his ability to ohko m-diancie and alolan-ninetales outside of veil, two otherwise problematic monsters.
Led Zeppelin (Mantine) @ Leftovers
Ability: Water Absorb
EVs: 252 HP / 160 SpD / 96 Spe
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Scald
- Defog
- Roost
- Haze
To complement skarmory's physcial bulk, here is mantine! Despite his passivity, do not think this pokémon is just a fool in the rain. His special bulk is a heartbreaker for volcarona, charizard-y, keldeo, nidoking, kommo-o, greninja, blacephalon, kingdra, among others. Mantine's water type grants another neutrality to ice which will come in handy given the rest of the team. Defog leaves no quarter to stealth rock setters. Haze is like a stairway to heaven versus setup sweepers. Roost ensures that mantine keeps himself healthy so that he can withstand prolonged onslaught while he quickly whittles down the opposition with scald to force the opponent into Achilles' last stand.
Scorpions (Gliscor) @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
EVs: 244 HP / 20 Def / 124 SpD / 120 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Defog
- Knock Off
- Roost
- Taunt
Yet another part of the defensive backbone. Gliscor's ground typing give it a neutrality to rock and key immunity to electric. Unlike Tornadus-T for instance, gliscor doesn't exactly rock you like a hurricane but taunt is generally sufficient to do moderate stallbreaking. Defog ensures that once the smoke is going down, the hazards are not on your side of the field. I prefer knock off over earthquake since other members of the team will use that move arguably better while the utility of knock off is generally quite appreciable on a stallbreaker. Facade is definitely another option but being unable to touch gengar and blacephalon can prove troublesome if they carry the right coverage for mantine. Toxic orb in tandem with poison heal give both protection vs status and great recovery over time. In the face of strong attackers, roost keeps gliscor healthy meaning that if there's no critical hit or brutal wind of change, your opponent will most likely be forced out.
AC/DC (Zapdos) @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 HP / 120 SpD / 136 Spe
Timid Nature
- Substitute
- Toxic
- Discharge
- Roost
Next there is zapdos. Discharge has a nasty 30% chance to make your opponent thunderstruck. Roost ensures that zapdos' high voltage sparkles as long as possible. The combination of pressure, toxic and substitute is a highway to hell to most defensive backbones.
Aerosmith (Aerodactyl) @ Aerodactylite
Ability: Unnerve
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Stone Edge
- Earthquake
- Pursuit
- Ice Fang
Now, let's start discussing the offensive stuff. So here is aerosmithdactyl! His very good base speed enables him to naturally outspeed almost all the unboosted metagame and even some boosted or scarfed threats, freeing up the last teamslot for a more devastating wallbreaker. Stabbed stone edge is a very powerful asset despite his low accuracy but frankly, I don't want to miss a thing. With skarmory already running stealth rock, aerodactyl is free to carry both earthquake and ice fang, granting him coverage most attackers can only dream on. Pursuit rings the armageddon on weakened threats which comes in particularly handy vs victini.
System of a Down (Landorus-Therian) @ Rockium Z
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge
- Swords Dance
- Rock Polish
Finally here's Landorus-Therian. Earthquake is a not a question! on Landorus-T. Thanks to his z-crystal, backed by swords dance, stone edge chops (suey) the opposition, notably okoing skarmory. Rock polish enables to sweep late game, often leaving electric players feeling like it's the most loneliest day of their lives.
Matchups :
Bug : very easy. Virtually all your mons are a threat to the standard bug team. M-Pinsir, heracross and scizor are all walled by skarmory, the hero of the day. Skarmory also sets up the very crucial stealth rocks which in this particular matchup you absolutely don't mind trading. Just beware not to take repeated damage from scizor's u-turns so that you can check m-pinsir late game if need be. Volcarona is helplessly walled by mantine if it doesn't run the very rare hp-electric. Armaldo has difficulties setting up rocks vs anything you have and gliscor annoys him very much. Offensively speaking, zapdos would already be a huge pain on his own but m-aerodactyl and landorus-t easily dispatches bug teams anyways.
Dark : slightly favorable. Both sides have decent chances. It is of outmost importance that you keep mantine healthy otherwise greninja freely spams ice beam, outspeeding everything and wrecking your team havoc. That being said, it's not always easy to do so since hydreigon often heavily pressures mantine but if mantine is ever in danger, always prefer sacking something else than putting him in range of being koed by greninja. Happily, we have our own tricks offensively and versus a standard balance dark team, it slightly outweights the cons. Zapdos is once again quite troublesome for the opponent. M-aerodactyl has no real switch-ins and can thus only be revenge killed by greninja. The same can be said about landorus-t except that once he sets a rock polish, even greninja doesn't outspeed him. However, if your opponent brings an offensive dark team, the matchup becomes a lot trickier: they have even less defensive answers to your threats but m-tyranitar can be very scary, especially if it runs ice punch, bisharp pressures skarmory until the point where weavile can clean the game. Overall you have a slight advantage vs most dark teams but a consistent handicap vs more offensive ones.
Dragon slightly favorable : More often than not, they basically have only one real threat against your team. Most Kommo-o variants are easily dealt with by mantine. Garchomp and dragonite are taken care by skarmory. Latios can be checked by pretty much all the defensive core. The big menace though is kyurem-b. With his ice/electric combo he can very easily shred our team into pieces if we aren't prepared for it. Happily m-aerodactyl can revenge kill him and then proceed to threaten the whole opposing team with ice fang.
Electric : rather difficult : As expected, this matchup is not a walk in the park. Although you do have electric immunities, most electric types run hp-ice specially for landorus-t and gliscor. Therefore be very cautious with both of them and try to put them in the best conditions. This often means sacking skarmory in exchange for rocks. Zapdos can stop a tapu koko sweep early game while ideally putting rotom-w and opposing zapdos on a timer with toxic. As mentioned before, be very cautious with gliscor since he's your only switch in to zeraora and can't check him if his toxic orb was knocked off prematurely. All hope is not lost however since if you can get a rock polish going on zapdos, a-golem, or choice locked tapu koko; landorus-t has a real potential to swiftly clean the game but you'll need very careful planning for it to work.
Fairy : slightly favorable : Fairy is another type that I would consider at a slight disadvantage vs us. Sure, tapu koko and especially m-diancie are nothing to scoff at but gliscor can check them both albeit rather shakily. But here is where zapdos comes in handy. Not only can he act as a secondary check to tapu koko but he can also setup a substitute in front of a harmless kelfki, then proceed to spam discharge. If Tapu koko comes in predicting the discharge, toxic will put him on a timer, which we gladly welcome. On the other hand, if diancie gets paralyzed, we can then substitute spam to quickly stall out the diamond storms removing a lot of sting to the threat. Azumarill is easily checked by mantine as long as it's not a jolly variant. You can speed creep to avoid that but I wouldn't recommend it since it loses a lot of bulk to do so. Skarmory not only walls tapu bulu and mimikyu but also threatens everything with a strong iron head, notably potentially luring and ohkoing diancie.
Fighting : slightly unfavorable : A matchup far more difficult than it seems. Paradoxically, skarmory which only sports a neutrality to fighting whereas most of the team is resistant to it, will be one of the most pressured defensive mon in this matchup. M-gallade, heracross, terrakion, and cobalion will all gang up vs him weakening it for each other. Things get even trickier if the opponent has a breloom which can not only also lure skarmory but also spread sleep everywhere. If you can predict it, aerodactyl is the best target for spore since he's the least important in that matchup, relieveing pressure on skarmory. Mantine has also quite a lot to do defensively between kommo-o and keldeo. Between these two there's a rather high risk he'll be caught by either taunt from the former or hp-electric from the latter. Happily zapdos makes a fantastic job in this matchup as well and landorus-t can be rather decent both offensively and defensively with intimidate.
Fire : very easy: One of the easiest matchups for this team. Gliscor prevents torkoal from setting his rocks. Zapdos is annoying as always. Mantine takes on blacephalon and charizard-y. Aerodactyl is awesome since he can very easily sweep while pursuit trapping a cheeky victini. Once you have broken heatran's balloon and put stealth rock on the field (sacking skarmory on something else than torakoal or rotom-h to do so) they can't stop to both landorus-t and aerodactyl and the game is all wrapped up. As simple as that.
Flying : slightly unfavorable: If the opponent has a thundurus-T, the game can be quite uncomfortable since you have nothing to take a +2 gigavolt havoc and a hp ice at the same time. Keeping gliscor healthy for thundurus-T is thus all the more curcial since he's also in charge of clearing hazards vs hyper offense variants which often employ regular aerodactyl or skarmory as suicide lead. Zapdos is strangely enough most of the time not very potent at all in this matchup since he can't touch gliscor. Mantine is also a relative free sack if the opponent doesn't have a charizard-y. Your main offensive plan is as often to wisely set up with lando and crush skarmory with a +2 continetal crush opening a big door for aerodactyl who can freely spam stone edge and ice fang in the endgame.
Ghost : very easy Zapdos is a terror to face, especially since most ghost teams blindly lead with m-sableye. Ligthgning rod marowak can switch on a predited discharge but despises toxic, which is a huge boon for us considering it's the most notorious threat they have. Fortunately, marowak is so slow that it finds very few opportunities to switch in even vs our walls like mantine. Skarmory tanks mantine while takes blacephalon and non thunderbolt gengar although he has to worry of trick coming from both of them. Aerodactyl is awesome since he can not only pursuit would be threats like gengar and blacephalon but also easily weaken decidueye with ice fang enabling landorus-t to sweep late game with little risk.
Grass : very difficult Haha, well, we all know birds eat grass, pidgeot beats bulbasaur right? Well, competitive pokémon is full of surprises and frankly I would argue this could be one of the worst matchups for this team, only beaten on that aspect by ice. You can't really use your type advantage because... well, none of your mons has a stab flying. The grass' defensive core is extremely difficult to tear apart. In an ideal world, you paralyze venusaur and ferrothorn while poisonning cradily with zapdos. If you managed to do that, then you need to lure venusaur with a +2 z move from lando and this won't be easy at all to set up. But you probably won't have time for this anyway since breloom+tapu bulu are extremely threatening anyway. Not a impossible matchup but you'll need a lot of courage and technique to win vs an experienced opponent.
Ground : rather easy Mantine takes on landorus-i very efficiently while skarmory walls the rest of the team on its own outside of gravity. Gliscor is here to constantly keep rocks of your field. For once, zapdos is very much expandable if the opponent knows his set. Try to bluff the spdef defog one in order to toxic gastrodon/seismitoad so that aerodactyl has an easier time tearing holes late game. Both landorus-t and aerodactyl need their checks weakened namely the aforementionned gastrodon/seismitoad and hippowdon, but since they have good offensive synergy and rely on a sturdy defensive backbone they shall overcome more often than not.
Ice : very difficult How to put it simply? Well, there are just too many threats. Kyurem-b on its own is an absolute terror, and he's even more so under veil. Speaking of veil, ninetales alola is also a huge pain to switch into. Though it's tempting to switch skarmory in front of ninetales, just don't since if you lose it, you will be swept by everything on the opposing team. Even if you don't, the combination of weavile, mamoswine and cloyster usually overwhelm the metal bird. Another important point to note is that the fact that skarmory is heavily pressured hinders his ability to set up rocks vs the opposing team which would greatly relieve us. Offensively on the other side you have absolutely no counter play since both landorus-t and aerodactyl are revenge killed by the numerous ice shards from the aforementionned threats as well as alolan-sandslash. As for grass, not impossible but extremely difficult.
Normal : rather difficult : Between the hard hitting diggersby and the fast lopunny, which of these is the strongest offensive threat to your team? Well, actually none of them, it's... porygon2... If you think a bit more it's quite logical since you're weak to any bolt-beam combo. The rarer porygon-z is in the same vein all the more threatenning. You could have the idea to go for game with landorus-t but it will only help you getting counter swept by ditto if you do not manage correctly your z-move and in any case you'll find yourself quite weakened if he doesn't miss his stone edge. Your main asset is gliscor who has an awesome utility in this matchup, notably completely shutting down chansey and avoiding rocks on your side while crippling his switch in with knock off. On the other hand chansey walls almost effortlessly zapdos and mantine is just dead weight if the opponent doesn't have the rare meloetta which 2hkos mantine with psyshock anyways if he's specs.
Poison : slightly favorable : Nihilego does look threatening ad indeed, if he is if he has hp ice; otherwise, gliscor shuts him down very efficiently. Depending on his coverage, nidoking can also be a formidable threat. If he has both thunderbolt and ice beam, you simply have no switch in. Despite this, if you play your cards well, you have the edge. Zapdos can ideally spread paralysis but like in the ground matchup where he can't touch excadrill, nidoking can't be touched by anything he throws at him. Ideally you want to bluff the spdef set and fish for a paralyze on venusaur to help landorus-t. Landorus-t is your main win condition. If you predict correctly the +2 continental crush will dispatch m-venusaur and then, nothing can stop him at +2 speed except unholy stone edge misses vs crobat. If nidoking has access to the bolt-beam combo, aerodactyl's main mission is to force him out every time he hits the field. Try to be wise with double switches in that situation. Aerodactyl also serves as a secondary wincon once landorus-t has taken care of m-venusaur.
Psychic rather easy : Victini will most probably get one kill. But one kill only since you would then be able to pursuit trap him with aerodactyl, relying on the eventual defense drops from v-create and/or prior damage. Aerodactyl soars very high in this matchup, revenge killing efficiently weakened targets. Skarmory is a rather loose check to the main threat to your team: m-gallade but the threat of a potential brave bird can make your opponent overthink. If the opposing mew is not double dance, mantine is often deadweight but keep him alive until you're sure of mew's set if you don't want to be swept. Zapdos can once again prove his worth if he finds a setup opportunity, most probably on slowbro or alakazam. A paralyzed jirachi would be a very potent achievement for you indeed. Gliscor is exceptionnaly good, easily dealing with defensive mew once toxic orb has activated as well as preventing stealth rock from non-icy wind jirachi variants and threatening everything bar m-gallade with a nasty knock off. Landorus-t has decent cleaning opportunities if the opponent lacks a slowbro or if he has been pursuited by aerodactyl beforehand. Overall the matchup is very good but ok, sometimes you fight a random bolt-beam deoxys speed and autolose xd!
Rock slightly favorable : For sure, m-diancie and nihilego are big threats. Gliscor is quite a loose check to the former while he can only take the latter if he lacks hp ice which is highly rare on rock teams due to it not having to run stealth rocks. The combination of trapper alolan golem+scarf terrakion can also put a great pressure on our team. Contrarily to one might think, if the opponent lacks the uncommon omastar, mantine's utility is very lackluster since cradily will tank him forever and ever. Their shuckle is absolutely useless since you're not affected by sticky webs and gliscor can defo the rocks while being immune to toxic. Cradily and shuckle are the only shaky opportunities for zapdos to setup a substitute and get going, otherwise his matchup here is underwhelming. Try to toxic cradily and zapdos would have done a great job. But m-Aerodactyl and especially landorus-t are huge terrors thanks to earthquake. Once cradily is slightly weakened, nothing can stop a +2 speed landorus to spam earthquake till the complete annihilation of the opposition.
Steel rather difficult : Conceiling zapdos set can prove crucial. If the opponent figures it out, excadrill will tank him forever whereas a potential paralysis on anything else is almost always very precious. Avoid using discharge in front of a protect ferrothorn thus. Mantine serves no purpose outside of dealing with the rare nasty plot lucario. Giscor can at least get rid of rocks vs most of the opposing team but is complete setup bait for m-scizor. M-scizor is indeed very threatening since skarmory can only phaze him with whirlwind and can't take him in 1v1 scenari. This is very quite scary since skarmory is already pressured by bisharp and to a lesser extent excadrill, while on more offensive teams, special lucario can lure our metal bird. Not to mention magnezone is also an option to trap him. A landorus-t sweep is surprisingly not that easy if you play vs a balanced steel since skarmory+celesteela+ferrothorn+m-scizor is very tedious to smack through. Even heatran has air balloon to protect him from landorus-t. Aerodactyl has even more difficulties doing anything outside of pursuit trapping a weakened jirachi with pursuit.
Water rather difficult : In many cases, zapdos is your ace card and you should lead with him vs almost every water team since you'll be able to force out pelipper or set up a sub in front of swampert and then proceed to paratoxic their entire team. Vs a stall water, zapdos will force lanturn in and pp stall the heal bells with toxic. Keep him healthy at all costs since he's by far your way to win, especially vs a fat water team. If you don't get unlucky with scald burns. Vs stall, you play pretty much at 1 vs 6 but you do have some chances. Vs balanced and offensive water teams, mantine becomes quite useful, being able to stop kingdra, keldeo and greninja provided he scouts for hp electric. Skarmory also serves as a loose check to m-swampert outside of rain and waterfall flinches. Overall though it's a bad matchup since your offensive core finds himself often helpless to do anything: landorus-t and aerodactyl tanked ad vitam aeternam by quagsire on stall while finding almost 0 opportunity to hit the field vs offense. The only spot landorus-t might have is vs toxapex on balance teams, but still, he has to fear scald damage and potential burn.
Replays :
By the time, I'll update some replays to put that in perspective:
Thanks for reading! I welcome any advice to improve my team!
proof of peak:
The Team :
Metallica (Skarmory) @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Sturdy
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD
Impish Nature
- Iron Head
- Roost
- Whirlwind
- Stealth Rock
I started the team with skarmory as it is a great physical wall. Typewise, steel grants it a neutrality to ice and rock, which enable him to make physical attackers like scarf terrakion, m-pinsir, scizor, (m-)tyranitar, garchomp, dragonite, mamoswine and many more fade to black. I personally prefer skarmory over celesteela for whom the bell tolls. That is mainly because I value the recovery in the form of roost which celesteela typically lacks, having to rely on leech seed and leftovers, enabling skarmory to better seek and destroy the aforementioned attackers. Additionally, whirlwind phazes the physical setup sweepers efficiently while rocky helmet punishes u-turn spam. Another up for skarmory is his ability to run either stealth rock, spikes or defog. Since I play flying, we will more than likely run double defog so spikes spam seems a bit counterproductive. I chose stealth rock mainly because sturdy allows me to set it up at least once every game even vs types skarmory is weak to, namely fire and electric. Sad but true, skarmory lacks a bit of offensive presence. The attacking option I prefer is iron head for his ability to ohko m-diancie and alolan-ninetales outside of veil, two otherwise problematic monsters.
Led Zeppelin (Mantine) @ Leftovers
Ability: Water Absorb
EVs: 252 HP / 160 SpD / 96 Spe
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Scald
- Defog
- Roost
- Haze
To complement skarmory's physcial bulk, here is mantine! Despite his passivity, do not think this pokémon is just a fool in the rain. His special bulk is a heartbreaker for volcarona, charizard-y, keldeo, nidoking, kommo-o, greninja, blacephalon, kingdra, among others. Mantine's water type grants another neutrality to ice which will come in handy given the rest of the team. Defog leaves no quarter to stealth rock setters. Haze is like a stairway to heaven versus setup sweepers. Roost ensures that mantine keeps himself healthy so that he can withstand prolonged onslaught while he quickly whittles down the opposition with scald to force the opponent into Achilles' last stand.
Scorpions (Gliscor) @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
EVs: 244 HP / 20 Def / 124 SpD / 120 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Defog
- Knock Off
- Roost
- Taunt
Yet another part of the defensive backbone. Gliscor's ground typing give it a neutrality to rock and key immunity to electric. Unlike Tornadus-T for instance, gliscor doesn't exactly rock you like a hurricane but taunt is generally sufficient to do moderate stallbreaking. Defog ensures that once the smoke is going down, the hazards are not on your side of the field. I prefer knock off over earthquake since other members of the team will use that move arguably better while the utility of knock off is generally quite appreciable on a stallbreaker. Facade is definitely another option but being unable to touch gengar and blacephalon can prove troublesome if they carry the right coverage for mantine. Toxic orb in tandem with poison heal give both protection vs status and great recovery over time. In the face of strong attackers, roost keeps gliscor healthy meaning that if there's no critical hit or brutal wind of change, your opponent will most likely be forced out.
AC/DC (Zapdos) @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 HP / 120 SpD / 136 Spe
Timid Nature
- Substitute
- Toxic
- Discharge
- Roost
Next there is zapdos. Discharge has a nasty 30% chance to make your opponent thunderstruck. Roost ensures that zapdos' high voltage sparkles as long as possible. The combination of pressure, toxic and substitute is a highway to hell to most defensive backbones.
Aerosmith (Aerodactyl) @ Aerodactylite
Ability: Unnerve
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Stone Edge
- Earthquake
- Pursuit
- Ice Fang
Now, let's start discussing the offensive stuff. So here is aerosmithdactyl! His very good base speed enables him to naturally outspeed almost all the unboosted metagame and even some boosted or scarfed threats, freeing up the last teamslot for a more devastating wallbreaker. Stabbed stone edge is a very powerful asset despite his low accuracy but frankly, I don't want to miss a thing. With skarmory already running stealth rock, aerodactyl is free to carry both earthquake and ice fang, granting him coverage most attackers can only dream on. Pursuit rings the armageddon on weakened threats which comes in particularly handy vs victini.
System of a Down (Landorus-Therian) @ Rockium Z
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge
- Swords Dance
- Rock Polish
Finally here's Landorus-Therian. Earthquake is a not a question! on Landorus-T. Thanks to his z-crystal, backed by swords dance, stone edge chops (suey) the opposition, notably okoing skarmory. Rock polish enables to sweep late game, often leaving electric players feeling like it's the most loneliest day of their lives.
Matchups :
Bug : very easy. Virtually all your mons are a threat to the standard bug team. M-Pinsir, heracross and scizor are all walled by skarmory, the hero of the day. Skarmory also sets up the very crucial stealth rocks which in this particular matchup you absolutely don't mind trading. Just beware not to take repeated damage from scizor's u-turns so that you can check m-pinsir late game if need be. Volcarona is helplessly walled by mantine if it doesn't run the very rare hp-electric. Armaldo has difficulties setting up rocks vs anything you have and gliscor annoys him very much. Offensively speaking, zapdos would already be a huge pain on his own but m-aerodactyl and landorus-t easily dispatches bug teams anyways.
Dark : slightly favorable. Both sides have decent chances. It is of outmost importance that you keep mantine healthy otherwise greninja freely spams ice beam, outspeeding everything and wrecking your team havoc. That being said, it's not always easy to do so since hydreigon often heavily pressures mantine but if mantine is ever in danger, always prefer sacking something else than putting him in range of being koed by greninja. Happily, we have our own tricks offensively and versus a standard balance dark team, it slightly outweights the cons. Zapdos is once again quite troublesome for the opponent. M-aerodactyl has no real switch-ins and can thus only be revenge killed by greninja. The same can be said about landorus-t except that once he sets a rock polish, even greninja doesn't outspeed him. However, if your opponent brings an offensive dark team, the matchup becomes a lot trickier: they have even less defensive answers to your threats but m-tyranitar can be very scary, especially if it runs ice punch, bisharp pressures skarmory until the point where weavile can clean the game. Overall you have a slight advantage vs most dark teams but a consistent handicap vs more offensive ones.
Dragon slightly favorable : More often than not, they basically have only one real threat against your team. Most Kommo-o variants are easily dealt with by mantine. Garchomp and dragonite are taken care by skarmory. Latios can be checked by pretty much all the defensive core. The big menace though is kyurem-b. With his ice/electric combo he can very easily shred our team into pieces if we aren't prepared for it. Happily m-aerodactyl can revenge kill him and then proceed to threaten the whole opposing team with ice fang.
Electric : rather difficult : As expected, this matchup is not a walk in the park. Although you do have electric immunities, most electric types run hp-ice specially for landorus-t and gliscor. Therefore be very cautious with both of them and try to put them in the best conditions. This often means sacking skarmory in exchange for rocks. Zapdos can stop a tapu koko sweep early game while ideally putting rotom-w and opposing zapdos on a timer with toxic. As mentioned before, be very cautious with gliscor since he's your only switch in to zeraora and can't check him if his toxic orb was knocked off prematurely. All hope is not lost however since if you can get a rock polish going on zapdos, a-golem, or choice locked tapu koko; landorus-t has a real potential to swiftly clean the game but you'll need very careful planning for it to work.
Fairy : slightly favorable : Fairy is another type that I would consider at a slight disadvantage vs us. Sure, tapu koko and especially m-diancie are nothing to scoff at but gliscor can check them both albeit rather shakily. But here is where zapdos comes in handy. Not only can he act as a secondary check to tapu koko but he can also setup a substitute in front of a harmless kelfki, then proceed to spam discharge. If Tapu koko comes in predicting the discharge, toxic will put him on a timer, which we gladly welcome. On the other hand, if diancie gets paralyzed, we can then substitute spam to quickly stall out the diamond storms removing a lot of sting to the threat. Azumarill is easily checked by mantine as long as it's not a jolly variant. You can speed creep to avoid that but I wouldn't recommend it since it loses a lot of bulk to do so. Skarmory not only walls tapu bulu and mimikyu but also threatens everything with a strong iron head, notably potentially luring and ohkoing diancie.
Fighting : slightly unfavorable : A matchup far more difficult than it seems. Paradoxically, skarmory which only sports a neutrality to fighting whereas most of the team is resistant to it, will be one of the most pressured defensive mon in this matchup. M-gallade, heracross, terrakion, and cobalion will all gang up vs him weakening it for each other. Things get even trickier if the opponent has a breloom which can not only also lure skarmory but also spread sleep everywhere. If you can predict it, aerodactyl is the best target for spore since he's the least important in that matchup, relieveing pressure on skarmory. Mantine has also quite a lot to do defensively between kommo-o and keldeo. Between these two there's a rather high risk he'll be caught by either taunt from the former or hp-electric from the latter. Happily zapdos makes a fantastic job in this matchup as well and landorus-t can be rather decent both offensively and defensively with intimidate.
Fire : very easy: One of the easiest matchups for this team. Gliscor prevents torkoal from setting his rocks. Zapdos is annoying as always. Mantine takes on blacephalon and charizard-y. Aerodactyl is awesome since he can very easily sweep while pursuit trapping a cheeky victini. Once you have broken heatran's balloon and put stealth rock on the field (sacking skarmory on something else than torakoal or rotom-h to do so) they can't stop to both landorus-t and aerodactyl and the game is all wrapped up. As simple as that.
Flying : slightly unfavorable: If the opponent has a thundurus-T, the game can be quite uncomfortable since you have nothing to take a +2 gigavolt havoc and a hp ice at the same time. Keeping gliscor healthy for thundurus-T is thus all the more curcial since he's also in charge of clearing hazards vs hyper offense variants which often employ regular aerodactyl or skarmory as suicide lead. Zapdos is strangely enough most of the time not very potent at all in this matchup since he can't touch gliscor. Mantine is also a relative free sack if the opponent doesn't have a charizard-y. Your main offensive plan is as often to wisely set up with lando and crush skarmory with a +2 continetal crush opening a big door for aerodactyl who can freely spam stone edge and ice fang in the endgame.
Ghost : very easy Zapdos is a terror to face, especially since most ghost teams blindly lead with m-sableye. Ligthgning rod marowak can switch on a predited discharge but despises toxic, which is a huge boon for us considering it's the most notorious threat they have. Fortunately, marowak is so slow that it finds very few opportunities to switch in even vs our walls like mantine. Skarmory tanks mantine while takes blacephalon and non thunderbolt gengar although he has to worry of trick coming from both of them. Aerodactyl is awesome since he can not only pursuit would be threats like gengar and blacephalon but also easily weaken decidueye with ice fang enabling landorus-t to sweep late game with little risk.
Grass : very difficult Haha, well, we all know birds eat grass, pidgeot beats bulbasaur right? Well, competitive pokémon is full of surprises and frankly I would argue this could be one of the worst matchups for this team, only beaten on that aspect by ice. You can't really use your type advantage because... well, none of your mons has a stab flying. The grass' defensive core is extremely difficult to tear apart. In an ideal world, you paralyze venusaur and ferrothorn while poisonning cradily with zapdos. If you managed to do that, then you need to lure venusaur with a +2 z move from lando and this won't be easy at all to set up. But you probably won't have time for this anyway since breloom+tapu bulu are extremely threatening anyway. Not a impossible matchup but you'll need a lot of courage and technique to win vs an experienced opponent.
Ground : rather easy Mantine takes on landorus-i very efficiently while skarmory walls the rest of the team on its own outside of gravity. Gliscor is here to constantly keep rocks of your field. For once, zapdos is very much expandable if the opponent knows his set. Try to bluff the spdef defog one in order to toxic gastrodon/seismitoad so that aerodactyl has an easier time tearing holes late game. Both landorus-t and aerodactyl need their checks weakened namely the aforementionned gastrodon/seismitoad and hippowdon, but since they have good offensive synergy and rely on a sturdy defensive backbone they shall overcome more often than not.
Ice : very difficult How to put it simply? Well, there are just too many threats. Kyurem-b on its own is an absolute terror, and he's even more so under veil. Speaking of veil, ninetales alola is also a huge pain to switch into. Though it's tempting to switch skarmory in front of ninetales, just don't since if you lose it, you will be swept by everything on the opposing team. Even if you don't, the combination of weavile, mamoswine and cloyster usually overwhelm the metal bird. Another important point to note is that the fact that skarmory is heavily pressured hinders his ability to set up rocks vs the opposing team which would greatly relieve us. Offensively on the other side you have absolutely no counter play since both landorus-t and aerodactyl are revenge killed by the numerous ice shards from the aforementionned threats as well as alolan-sandslash. As for grass, not impossible but extremely difficult.
Normal : rather difficult : Between the hard hitting diggersby and the fast lopunny, which of these is the strongest offensive threat to your team? Well, actually none of them, it's... porygon2... If you think a bit more it's quite logical since you're weak to any bolt-beam combo. The rarer porygon-z is in the same vein all the more threatenning. You could have the idea to go for game with landorus-t but it will only help you getting counter swept by ditto if you do not manage correctly your z-move and in any case you'll find yourself quite weakened if he doesn't miss his stone edge. Your main asset is gliscor who has an awesome utility in this matchup, notably completely shutting down chansey and avoiding rocks on your side while crippling his switch in with knock off. On the other hand chansey walls almost effortlessly zapdos and mantine is just dead weight if the opponent doesn't have the rare meloetta which 2hkos mantine with psyshock anyways if he's specs.
Poison : slightly favorable : Nihilego does look threatening ad indeed, if he is if he has hp ice; otherwise, gliscor shuts him down very efficiently. Depending on his coverage, nidoking can also be a formidable threat. If he has both thunderbolt and ice beam, you simply have no switch in. Despite this, if you play your cards well, you have the edge. Zapdos can ideally spread paralysis but like in the ground matchup where he can't touch excadrill, nidoking can't be touched by anything he throws at him. Ideally you want to bluff the spdef set and fish for a paralyze on venusaur to help landorus-t. Landorus-t is your main win condition. If you predict correctly the +2 continental crush will dispatch m-venusaur and then, nothing can stop him at +2 speed except unholy stone edge misses vs crobat. If nidoking has access to the bolt-beam combo, aerodactyl's main mission is to force him out every time he hits the field. Try to be wise with double switches in that situation. Aerodactyl also serves as a secondary wincon once landorus-t has taken care of m-venusaur.
Psychic rather easy : Victini will most probably get one kill. But one kill only since you would then be able to pursuit trap him with aerodactyl, relying on the eventual defense drops from v-create and/or prior damage. Aerodactyl soars very high in this matchup, revenge killing efficiently weakened targets. Skarmory is a rather loose check to the main threat to your team: m-gallade but the threat of a potential brave bird can make your opponent overthink. If the opposing mew is not double dance, mantine is often deadweight but keep him alive until you're sure of mew's set if you don't want to be swept. Zapdos can once again prove his worth if he finds a setup opportunity, most probably on slowbro or alakazam. A paralyzed jirachi would be a very potent achievement for you indeed. Gliscor is exceptionnaly good, easily dealing with defensive mew once toxic orb has activated as well as preventing stealth rock from non-icy wind jirachi variants and threatening everything bar m-gallade with a nasty knock off. Landorus-t has decent cleaning opportunities if the opponent lacks a slowbro or if he has been pursuited by aerodactyl beforehand. Overall the matchup is very good but ok, sometimes you fight a random bolt-beam deoxys speed and autolose xd!
Rock slightly favorable : For sure, m-diancie and nihilego are big threats. Gliscor is quite a loose check to the former while he can only take the latter if he lacks hp ice which is highly rare on rock teams due to it not having to run stealth rocks. The combination of trapper alolan golem+scarf terrakion can also put a great pressure on our team. Contrarily to one might think, if the opponent lacks the uncommon omastar, mantine's utility is very lackluster since cradily will tank him forever and ever. Their shuckle is absolutely useless since you're not affected by sticky webs and gliscor can defo the rocks while being immune to toxic. Cradily and shuckle are the only shaky opportunities for zapdos to setup a substitute and get going, otherwise his matchup here is underwhelming. Try to toxic cradily and zapdos would have done a great job. But m-Aerodactyl and especially landorus-t are huge terrors thanks to earthquake. Once cradily is slightly weakened, nothing can stop a +2 speed landorus to spam earthquake till the complete annihilation of the opposition.
Steel rather difficult : Conceiling zapdos set can prove crucial. If the opponent figures it out, excadrill will tank him forever whereas a potential paralysis on anything else is almost always very precious. Avoid using discharge in front of a protect ferrothorn thus. Mantine serves no purpose outside of dealing with the rare nasty plot lucario. Giscor can at least get rid of rocks vs most of the opposing team but is complete setup bait for m-scizor. M-scizor is indeed very threatening since skarmory can only phaze him with whirlwind and can't take him in 1v1 scenari. This is very quite scary since skarmory is already pressured by bisharp and to a lesser extent excadrill, while on more offensive teams, special lucario can lure our metal bird. Not to mention magnezone is also an option to trap him. A landorus-t sweep is surprisingly not that easy if you play vs a balanced steel since skarmory+celesteela+ferrothorn+m-scizor is very tedious to smack through. Even heatran has air balloon to protect him from landorus-t. Aerodactyl has even more difficulties doing anything outside of pursuit trapping a weakened jirachi with pursuit.
Water rather difficult : In many cases, zapdos is your ace card and you should lead with him vs almost every water team since you'll be able to force out pelipper or set up a sub in front of swampert and then proceed to paratoxic their entire team. Vs a stall water, zapdos will force lanturn in and pp stall the heal bells with toxic. Keep him healthy at all costs since he's by far your way to win, especially vs a fat water team. If you don't get unlucky with scald burns. Vs stall, you play pretty much at 1 vs 6 but you do have some chances. Vs balanced and offensive water teams, mantine becomes quite useful, being able to stop kingdra, keldeo and greninja provided he scouts for hp electric. Skarmory also serves as a loose check to m-swampert outside of rain and waterfall flinches. Overall though it's a bad matchup since your offensive core finds himself often helpless to do anything: landorus-t and aerodactyl tanked ad vitam aeternam by quagsire on stall while finding almost 0 opportunity to hit the field vs offense. The only spot landorus-t might have is vs toxapex on balance teams, but still, he has to fear scald damage and potential burn.
Replays :
By the time, I'll update some replays to put that in perspective:
Thanks for reading! I welcome any advice to improve my team!
proof of peak:
