SM OU Mother Tongue (Peak 1947)

[Prisoner952]

fala amo

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Introduction
Hello Smogon! Back again with another one of my trick room teams, this time structured around alolum. Trapper trick room was a dream of mine over a year ago, and it has given me several successful builds. As an added benefit, this team isnt as braindead as most TR teams, where you just send in marowak/crawdaunt and sd up and click to kill stuff. You actually have to anticipate your opponent's plays. As a result, this team has given me the most success on high ladder, where people actually make sensical plays. This build looked meme-y to me at first but it absolutely surprised me with its effectiveness.

you probably dont believe me

The Journey

Even before golem came along, I had experimented with magnezone as a trapper, but none of those teams were even remotely viable, which leads me to the original alolum team. I built this one for the first round of smogon's iron chef (whose requirements were 3 choice locked mons). The team fell on its ass, of course, as a result of bad construction and my dumb plays. After that I was feeling pretty defeated, so I dropped the concept for awhile.

The second iteration looks fairly similar to the first, but much more effective. For those of you who read my last rmt you know I was experimenting with banded stakataka, and its dislike of steels made him the perfect candidate. I played the team for awhile to a degree of success, but eventually moved on for reasons I cannot remember. After that, I dropped the formula for awhile.

Not too long ago I rediscovered the team in my archives, so I polished it up and played it a fair amount. It was a good team, for sure, but not great. Not very fun either. To solve that last part I decided it was time to change up the lineup more drastically.

replays

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-938088886

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-938120027

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-938146345

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-938148467

Abomasnow and Lando certainly made the team more fun to play. The team was probably a bit less effective than its predecessor, but I had more fun playing it so I did better. Played it until about 1850 until I realized exactly how bad abomasnow was. I then decided it was time to rebuild again.

replay

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-938260844
(used to run sub over ice shard)

I wanted to try another Ice type, and I'd previously experimented with mamoswine and magnezone in one of my bazaar posts, so he seemed to be the best choice. Mamoswine had a good run, peaking around 1920. And I was happy with this build; however I was a bit tired of using the same formula over and over again, so I built another team on the side while I laddered this one.....

I began with the 2 core members of the team.

I'd tried tyrantrum with golem a couple times before, but kept scrapping the teams after getting frustrated at head smash misses. I decided to keep a level head this time and give tyrantrum another shot.

Sylveon was a mon I wanted to use on TR for awhile, and alolum gave me a chance to use her without being walled by half the meta. I'd returned to the original strategy of triple choice at this point.

I didn't want to run magearna when sylveon could already spam weakish special fairy moves. The team didn't look that serious anyway at this point, and I'd tried mimikyu on some past non-golem teams to moderate success, so I decided he would be the next choice.

And of course toxapex is a bitch so I added lure bronzong as my lead. Because everyone leads pex for early tspikes. And then team took off.

In-Depth

Golem-Alola @ Choice Band
Ability: Magnet Pull
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Wild Charge
- Fire Punch
- Earthquake
- Explosion
The heart of the team, golem removes problematic steels for all. When tyrantrum or sylveon is locked into a move by choice, golem gives you an artificial anti-steel coverage move. When there are no steels to trap, he can be a suicide pivot off of cress or mimikyu. In other words, if you don't want your abusers to take damage, just switch into him sponge a hit and go boom, hopefully collecting a kill in the process. Electric isnt a very useful move for TR abusers, but in some cases he can be an ok sweeper.

Cresselia @ Mental Herb
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 248 HP / 168 Def / 92 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Ice Beam
- Moonlight
- Trick Room
- Lunar Dance
The cleric. Been in all of my RMT's, best TR setter, needs no explaination.

Tyrantrum @ Choice Band
Ability: Rock Head
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Head Smash
- Ice Fang
- Outrage
- Fire Fang
The Muscle. Tyrantrum breaks through whatever sylveon can't. The dual STAB's in rock and dragon are very hard to stop once golem has removed steels from the equation. Head smash is, of course, the more reliable of the 2 because fairies are everywhere. Ice fang if you are absolutely sure lando will come in and you don't want to rick misses or if you don't want to lock into outrage against chomp. Fire fang is backup incase you lose golem somehow.

Sylveon @ Choice Specs
Ability: Pixilate
EVs: 248 HP / 56 Def / 204 SpA
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Hyper Voice
- Sleep Talk
- Psyshock
- Hidden Power [Ground]
The cleaner. Most teams rely on either poison or steel types to check fairies. With golem removing steels and bronzong taking care of poisons, sylveon has free reign. Hyper voice hits incredibly hard and through subs, which TR teams especially appreciate. Sylveon is also pretty fat, and is who the team relies on to check ash-gren. The given evs let you take a +1 waterfall from mega gyarados and a +4 sucker punch from mmaw both after rocks. If hp ground doesn't finish, mimikyu can come in on the second sucker punch and get rid of it. Sleep talk because TR is very weak to spore. HP ground serves 2 purposes: as a backup coverage move incase golem goes down somehow and because players will often think that they can earth power golem off the switch with their heatran, so you just kill them off with HP ground straight away.

Mimikyu @ Mimikium Z
Ability: Disguise
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Trick Room
- Swords Dance
- Play Rough
- Shadow Claw
The finisher. One guaranteed TR set and one guaranteed nuke. After sylveon and tyrantrum soften up the team, mimikyu can usually come in and pick off the stragglers. Mimikyu is usually bulky enough to stomach a hit and get a sd off to sweep, and alongside lets snuggle forever, mimikyu is actually a very strong breaker. Disguise is also an invaluable failsafe if things get out of hand.

Bronzong @ Psychium Z
Ability: Heatproof
EVs: 252 HP / 236 Atk / 20 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Trick Room
- Stealth Rock
- Zen Headbutt
- Explosion
The lure. You can never know the satisfaction of killing pex or mvenu on turn 1 until you've done it. The given evs make killing sp.def pex guaranteed, while dumping the rest into its own sp.def for a higher chance to live a pre-ash gren dark pulse on t1. If your opponent does not lead with their pex or mvenu, consider saving bronzong in the back for when they bring it in. Nobody expects the shattered psyche. And now you may think that this set is trash because it loses to taunt on t1, but Z-TR bypasses taunt. It's just a question of whether you want to spend your z move here or on mimikyu. Explosion is vital to the set as well. When your opponent has, say, koko in, they'll have to make the choice of either losing koko or switching to a steel and promptly being trapped off of the safe switch. Also rocks are generally more important than one TR set, in case you have to choose.

Conclusion
It's was really fun laddering with this team at its peak about a month ago, but I'm a bit too bored with mons currently to seriously ladder again. Ironically, it has a very weak matchup against some of the other off-meta teams floating around on ladder. A large part of the reason I was knocked off of my peak were the krookodile and m-aggron teams that I hit 2-4 times each. Regardless, I think that this team is probably the best representation of my playstyle yet. If I do another rmt before swsh, it could quite possibly be another golem squad. Whether it is better than my first 2 rmt's, namely the first, is another question though. What I do love about this team is that it is less matchup-driven than the former 2, but still has the almost auto-win matchup against some teams. Hope you all have fun playing it!

Threats

Both steel types that are hard to trap. Aggron can kill off golem with eq and takes little from his attacks and scizor just u-turns out. Aggron can be worn down due to its lack of recovery however, and scizor takes a huge chunk from tyrantrum's head smash anyway.

@ SubCM - With calm mind blace takes little damage behind sub from sylveon's hyper voice and can sweep the whole team if mimikyu's disguise is burned. The trick is just not to let it set up, as it only really can off of sylveon locked into hyper voice or cress.


Spikes - Whole team is grounded, golem is 4x weak, big pain in the ass.

Same as the last 2 teams, this one struggles against teams that have one non-steel mon that walls sylveon and one for tyrantrum. Luckily, as long as you successfully remove steels that combination of mons is very rare in ou. Even then, you can use your coverage moves to bop them.

replays

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-939364260

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-939368959

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-939528184

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-939535002

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-939554810

Mawile Edit

I tried mawile over tyrantrum after peaking to less success. It does make the team truly fairy spam though, so you can give it a try if you want.
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-939779853

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-939784017

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-939806853

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-940351713

import

Golem-Alola @ Choice Band
Ability: Magnet Pull
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Wild Charge
- Fire Punch
- Earthquake
- Explosion

Tyrantrum @ Choice Band
Ability: Rock Head
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Head Smash
- Ice Fang
- Outrage
- Fire Fang

Cresselia @ Mental Herb
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 248 HP / 168 Def / 92 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Ice Beam
- Moonlight
- Trick Room
- Lunar Dance

Mimikyu @ Mimikium Z
Ability: Disguise
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Trick Room
- Swords Dance
- Play Rough
- Shadow Claw

Sylveon @ Choice Specs
Ability: Pixilate
EVs: 248 HP / 56 Def / 204 SpA
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Hyper Voice
- Sleep Talk
- Psyshock
- Hidden Power [Ground]

Bronzong @ Psychium Z
Ability: Heatproof
EVs: 252 HP / 236 Atk / 20 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Trick Room
- Stealth Rock
- Zen Headbutt
- Explosion

Out
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[Micktown]

Hey man, I love the team. Has a lot of different things for OU. 4 out of 6 mons outclassed in OU, no mega evolutions, 2 Z move users and 3 choice locked mons (1 or 2 is fine, but I wouldn't recommend half the team). Yet everything makes sense and works brilliantly. It does require a lot of skill to use (as any team would with RU mons in OU), but it's still an awesome team.
One question I do have is how you deal with Stakataka? It can underspeed the team in Trick Room, Earthquake OHKO's Golem and Gyro Ball OHKO's Tyrantrum, Sylveon, and Mimikyu. Bronzong and Cresselia can't do much to it either. The only thing I can think of Sylveon's HP Ground outside of Trick Room. Even then it's a bit clunky because you have to switch out, set up Trick Room again and switch it back in. Stakataka's not very common outside of Trick Room, but I still think its a threat. Any thoughts?

 

[Prisoner952]

Hey man, I love the team. Has a lot of different things for OU. 4 out of 6 mons outclassed in OU, no mega evolutions, 2 Z move users and 3 choice locked mons (1 or 2 is fine, but I wouldn't recommend half the team). Yet everything makes sense and works brilliantly. It does require a lot of skill to use (as any team would with RU mons in OU), but it's still an awesome team.
One question I do have is how you deal with Stakataka? It can underspeed the team in Trick Room, Earthquake OHKO's Golem and Gyro Ball OHKO's Tyrantrum, Sylveon, and Mimikyu. Bronzong and Cresselia can't do much to it either. The only thing I can think of Sylveon's HP Ground outside of Trick Room. Even then it's a bit clunky because you have to switch out, set up Trick Room again and switch it back in. Stakataka's not very common outside of Trick Room, but I still think its a threat. Any thoughts?

I never hit stak with this team, but I can see how it would be a difficult matchup. The way I’d deal with it is to stall until there is one turn of trick room left. On that turn switch in golem, who would live any move but earthquake if I’m not mistaken. The next turn you can outspeed and ohko with eq while he’s trapped.

 

[737373elj]

Great team!
I just want to clarify what are your thoughts on Mega Ampharos on TR, as I’m building a team around it and it looks like TR. have you ever experimented with it?

 

[Prisoner952]

Great team!
I just want to clarify what are your thoughts on Mega Ampharos on TR, as I’m building a team around it and it looks like TR. have you ever experimented with it?

I was never a big fan of mega ampharos on TR. If your aim is just to spam electric attacks, vikavolt does it better. If your aim is just to spam dragon attacks, drampa does it better. And neither of those are even good type attacks to spam because ground and fairy types are everywhere in the tier. So of course the main reason to use ampharos would be its coverage options, but it doesn't really have the stats to make anything work. Fire punch too weak to 2hko magearna. Focus blast too weak to OHKO ferrothorn. Signal beam doesn't 2hko av tang. Its main option tbolt is too weak to even ohko medicham. And the mon is decently bulky, which would be good except you have to mega evolve to unlock it. Overall a pretty akward mon. I don't think I ever built something with it, nothing good anyway, but maybe I will in the future if I find some way to make it work.
edit: it also has mold breaker which is an amazing ability but no real application except tbolting manectric, who will take like nothing anyway.

 

[multiYellowHorse]

Have only played it for a couple of minutes but ill leave the deep dive out for now. Regardless thank you for making such a creative team! Its really fun using. Especially fun to see golem put in so much work; turns out his true potential is unlocked under trick room. Also I didnt Bronzong was viable but this set has put in good work if your oponents think me to be levitate (since its most common). Also happy to see a team with the god himself tyrantrum!

 

[Bomb Voyage]

Great team, but doesn't double Z essentially waste an item slot? I get the merit of Z-Trick Room but still.

 

[Prisoner952]

Great team, but doesn't double Z essentially waste an item slot? I get the merit of Z-Trick Room but still.

The main use of psychium on bronzong here is z-zen headbutt to ohko toxapex and venusaur who can be problematic for sylveon and mimikyu. Z-trick room is a situational move that is probably not going to be worth it usually. Because both are only for specific matchups, you will usually not use the z move, and z mimikyu is much better than life orb on this team.