Project RU Research Week: SuMo Edition [Week 4]

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i won't make a shot of this idt, sort of notoriously poor about getting around to laddering, but i've taken a bit of interest in araquanid and just thought i'd share some thoughts on it. i think that araquanid is mildly difficult to justify on teams in part for the opportunity cost weighed by running it over escavalier; while it doesn't run in the exact same lane as escavalier, araquanid's application as a band user finds itself in a very similar place, with the unfortunate distinction of being a bit easier to wall and sr weak. to that end, i find it extremely important when considering it for your team to take into consideration its strong points over him, notably its ability to loosely check nidoqueen, an immunity to scald (which mainly offers up a more comfortable slowking / bro switch), and the speed to put it over dudes sitting in that 50-65 speed tier w/comfort. a particularly noteworthy application of the latter comes up in the case of umbreon, who keeps escavalier honest via the potential to outpace and 2hko it with foul play, while araquanid both outpaces and avoids that 2hko. for reference, i was running the following:

Araquanid @ Choice Band
Ability: Water Bubble
EVs: 104 HP / 216 Atk / 188 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Liquidation
- Leech Life
- Toxic
- Mirror Coat / Sleep Talk

frankly any non-stab attack, with the possible exception of crunch if / when jellicent surges back in popularity, is hardly worth using so i just dodge them outright. toxic reaffirms its ability to play into waters not intrinsically weak to it, nabs chesnaught switches, etc., which is fine for teams that'd be running this in the first place. mirror coat i like a bit more than sleep talk for the time being, netting the surprise ko on special dragons like drag and kommo-o that would generally find themselves nabbing moderately free shots here is way more useful most of the time imo. otherwise the spread is simply, umbreon down get outpaced as i feel to be necessary to separating araquanid's niche.


however, due to the problems i mentioned w/araquanid's inability to meaningfully pressure certain pokemon, i did a little theorymonning in beta stages and feel as tho this particular set has a unique niche in dismantling certain pokemon:

Araquanid @ Apicot Berry
Ability: Water Bubble
EVs: 248 HP / 208 Def / 52 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Spider Web
- Rest
- Scald
- Toxic


the main application of this set rests pretty heavily on the premise of basically every other araquanid being banded, striving to capitalize by trapping and stalling out select defensive pokemon. spider web is a trapping move that works through protect, meaning that pokemon that araquanid might find themselves switching into (umbreon, florges, and other such clerics) as well as bulky water-types such as milotic and mantine (even air slash, as i'll expand on later) that switch in as general initial pivots will find themselves trapped and thereafter stalled out via toxic+rest cycles. scald provides that same utility in relation to your traditional bulky steels, should they find themselves as the middle-ground switch of choice. since the idea of feigning choice is so important initially, i opted for apicot berry, which boosts spdef once you hit 25%, allowing not only added leniency against pokemon like cm florges and air slash mantine (the latter of which can no longer ko you in 3 w/o 2 crits), but can even switch into non-bolt nidoqueen on the sr, spider web on the sludge wave, and rest into the next one, effectively allowing you to pp stall that out provided you can avoid a crit within those 16 hits. cool set, give it a try on a team that struggles to piece apart a traditional defensive backbone.
 

atomicllamas

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Didn't make a new alt to ladder for this, but one thing I have been using a ton of is a Bruxish set that has been pretty decent so far.

Bruxish @ Life Orb
Ability: Dazzling
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Aqua Jet
- Waterfall
- Psychic Fangs

Strong Jaw is an option if you want to run Crunch over Waterfall (hits Cress and Doublade harder and Slowbro, also an option w/o Strong Jaw), but Waterfall + Dazzling beats stuff like Honchkrow, and Waterfall hits Gligar / Diancie / Umbreon harder than Crunch would. Dazzling is also extremely cool because it allows you to set up on things like Iron Head + Sacred Sword Doublade (idk why people run this), and you can beat Zoroark with a +2 Aqua Jet. One thing I've found pairs pretty well with Bruxish is your own SD Zoroark, they pair extremely nicely to give each other set up opportunities and wear down each others checks and counters. Doublade / Registeel / Cresselia / Umbreon will often stay in against Zoroark disguised as Bruxish, which allows Bruxish to sweep more easily later. The thing I like about the set tho is that it dicks the Linoone team -Tsunami- made that everyone has been spamming on the ladder. This got really rambly, but this set is fun, try it :).
 
Sorry for the delay, I forgot about this in last thursday's chaos for me and I decided it'd be best just to wait a full week.

This week's winner was... HypnoEmpire! congratulations~

Now, for this week's Pokémon:

Mismagius
Ability
EVs:
Filler Nature
-
-
-
-


Salazzle
Ability
EVs:
Filler Nature
-
-
-
-
 
Already used Mismagius quite a lot and did a few posts regarding it already.



Mismagius @ Ghostium Z
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Nasty Plot
- Taunt
- Shadow Ball
- Dazzling Gleam

Mismagius was never necessarily a "bad" Pokemon, its just lacked the power and needed way too much support for it to be effective. With the addition of Z-moves, Mismagius is now able to break through fatter Pokemon (such as Milotic, Florges, Mantine, Registeel, etc. list goes on) that it would have never been able to before with a whopping 160 Base Power STAB move in Z-Shadow Ball (Never-Ending Nightmare). Nasty Plot + Taunt allows gives it a decent matchup against stall teams. Taunt is also great for setting up on passive Pokemon such as Registeel to prep to hit something incredibly hard. Dazzling Gleam is its best coverage option allowing it to hit Dark-types such as Umbreon, Scrafty, Pangoro, etc.. Its honestly not much to say that hasn't been said about this set as its pretty straight forward.

mismagius team
mismagius core
 
I'm trying to break into RU and doing research weeks is a fun way to learn about the meta.

Count me in as RW Kodama, I'll use Salazzle.
 
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