SP Shared Power

[Gimlaf]

Whew, now that I took the first place on ladder (for now at least), I might as well post the team I've been using for the latest climb.

Proof, because why not

I've tried to build a Berserk Bulky Offense team for a while, but after playing with some different setups I suppose something just clicked now. Introducing:

Berserk Ogre.

Basically, it's a team that weathers opposing offense through Fluffy and Tablets of Ruin, while being able to fall back on some mons with high natural special bulk, on top of having recovery in Rest + Hydration.
For the team's own damage boosting there's, well, Berserk, but it also makes use of Mega Launcher, which, among other things, turns Kyogre's Origin Pulse into a weapon of mass destruction, even without investment. Scarf Spout Kyogre is cool and all, but a bulky set is a different kind of pain to deal with, lol.

Short mon explanations:

Special tank number 1, and of course the only mon with Berserk available. Hurricane benefits from Rain, Dark Pulse gets amped up by Mega Launcher, and the mon really appreciates having reliable recovery.


pretty much just here to share Mega Launcher, but with Specs it can put some dents into the opponent's team. Just don't rely on it to sweep or anything.


does Houndstone things. With Wisp and Roar it irritates physical attackers even more, and it's another mon that likes having a recovery option.


Special tank number 2. Giga Drain coupled with Berserk is fun, doing more damage with each proc and ideally keeping itself above the 50% threshold. Leech Seed and Knock Off help in whittling down stallier teams, since it does lack immediate damage without a SpA boost or two.


Special tank number 3, this is more focused on hitting stuff hard with Dragon Pulse. With Tera Poison it gives the team a Fairy resist it otherwise lacks.


The Big Boi. Very tough to break, and can set up CM in case it can't get Berserk procs off. Not that it absolutely needs those, it does plenty damage anyways. And of course, it brings the Rain that enables Rest + Hydration shenanigans.

 

[excitedly ava]

So Sun is in a weird spot right now, in my opinion, given the state of Rain teams being so common but also having a ton of strong mons to abuse the many boosts that Sun provides. I wanted to build a semi-Berry team that vnmmv mentioned before.

https://pokepast.es/2eed3a8bb4aea32a
I didn't really do any calcs nor can I test this at the moment so this is purely theory crafting, but Belch is a fun move and I wanted to see if I could do something fun with it.

I'd like to give an update on this little concept I've been building. I've done a couple of ladder games and there are three very obvious problems:

Grumpig is fucking awful, priority spam destroys the team (namely Scizor and Rillaboom teams), and hazards SUCK, even with Maushold to clean them up.

As such I've made another version to better deal with these issues.
https://pokepast.es/17452cadf297f4b8

Explanations

Great Tusk: Rapid Spin + Protosynthesis boosting Attack is great, with good physical bulk to keep it going. Decidueye walls it completely, which is a problem due to how it's becoming more common to answer Fluffy, but other than that it does its job. Spins, maybe picks up a kill or two. Knock Off can replace Supercell Slam, which is probably better, but as I'm typing this I'm too lazy to go make a new Pokepaste.

Indeedee: I'll be honest it was either this + Tusk, or Pincurchin + Treads. Both probably work. Anyways, pretty standard set, mostly just for terrain to make Rillaboom teams a bit weaker. I will say that QD+E-terrain is likely better.

Groudon: Rocks setter and Salac makes it actually pretty damn fast, so most of the time it doesn't even really need a Swords Dance to get a couple of kills. Pretty standard overall.

Grumpig: Unfortunately the best belch user I could fit on the team was between Skeledirge and Grumping, but I went with Grumpig for Gluttony support so that it can still serve a purpose in the scenario that it meets its untimely demise. Its stats suck, its typing sucks, it gets completely walled by most cores with a Steel type, but in the rare instance it works, it WORKS. Belch is crazy strong, Salac makes it fast, and Nasty Plot gives it an offensive presence that would be foolish to disregard. It does kind of really on Tera to stay alive, but that's a price worth paying imo to make a ZU mon have a niche in an OM.

Appletun: Stall-Lord 5000. Pretty self-explanatory, defensive switch in, gets leech seed up, just kinda sits there and says "fuck you" to whatever's in front of it.

Trevenant: Standard Wisp+Sub.

Although finnicky I've had more success with this team than the first draft. I've always had a thing for Belch teams in Standard (Hydreigon and Salazzle my beloveds <3) and I really do think that it's underutilized. Most of the mons that get access to it don't have a berry-boosting Abilities (besides Grumpig, Muk, and Swalot, who all kinda suck in one way or another) which probably contributes, but by god if there's a chance to make it work I am going to do everything in my power to have fun with it.

 

[KaenSoul]

Survey is OVER!
With only 12 answers, we didn't get as many as I wanted, but is still enough to get an idea of where everyone's mind is at.

Kyogre has been the main suspect target for a bit, and it looks like a lot of people agree with that, but many aren't convinced, so we will be suspect testing Kyogre very soon to finally have a decisive answer on the subject

Despite its popularity, most people don't think Scizor is broken, it was in 32.77% of teams last mon at the top of the usage rating, as Technician is one of the best abilities in the format in multiple archetypes, is to be expected that the best donor for it was a popular all across the board.

Not much to say about this one, people seem to be mostly fine with Raging Bolt for now.

Quark Drive being the last viable form of speed boosting has turned it into a big deal, it got a lot of support for action, so expect it to be the next subject after we are done with Kyogre. Depending on if Kyogre stays or not it may be right away, or we will have to wait until the new meta settles a bit.

Magnet Pull got a lot of support to move from banned to restricted, the plan is to do the change after suspect, so we don't have the suspect with a format different from the one we are playing. We will be discussing the others with 4+ votes, but don't expect anything to come from it until the already scheduled events happen.

 

[KaenSoul]

The suspect thread is up!

https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/shared-power-suspect-aquarius-kyogre.3742314/

 

[LuffyWasTaken]

with the recent suspect test i was thinking about what could i make to revolutionize the meta, i remembered saying calyrex-ice is not a worthy threat in the meta because i was seeing it only in the concept of lycanroc offense teams and whatnot so i started thinking out of the box and i remembered about hail actually giving a +1 def boost this gen and thats not something being used right now for some reason, so what if we also add Fluffy to the mix? we'd have some very scary threats running free right? so i made an ice spam team and tried to get reqs with it and got a nice 23-2 record with it, could have been 25-0 if i paid more attention to my games but the team works and thats all i care about so ill be posting it here for yall to try it out or maybe even make it better, the idea is there :3


pokepaste: https://pokepast.es/a2a3c0510c33a3ff

team explaination:

this team is a bit weird to pilot because we got alot of abilities we want to active as soon as possible right? leading ninetales into aurora veil is pretty free and gives us an easy time into doing so and also its a good setup chance for sweepers like calyrex and baxcalibur, team is a lil weak to hazards but we got a max HP defog scizor so we should be fine, overall the team is pretty scary as long as we play correctly, team is also slightly weak to heatran so we need to offensively pressure it with our crawdaunt, we can eventually chip it and sweep with bax or calyrex terastalizing infront of it and tera blasting it into a KO

things we can consider to change:

u-turn over knock off on sciz, i like knock off for the switching in heatrans, its not a big reason so u-turn is totally understandable over it
nasty plot over encore on ninetales, i think encore is good to trap setup mons or trap hazard mons and whatnot, its good so we can stay pressing but nasty plot with snow and fluffy support can also make ninetales a scary fast setup mon if needed
crabhammer over liquidation on crawdaunt, i dont like losing cuz of a miss but thats just a personal choice, its true we dont miss those vs no guard teams in case, pick whichever one yall prefer

 

[Raoul Sanchez]

with the recent suspect test i was thinking about what could i make to revolutionize the meta, i remembered saying calyrex-ice is not a worthy threat in the meta because i was seeing it only in the concept of lycanroc offense teams and whatnot so i started thinking out of the box and i remembered about hail actually giving a +1 def boost this gen and thats not something being used right now for some reason, so what if we also add Fluffy to the mix? we'd have some very scary threats running free right? so i made an ice spam team and tried to get reqs with it and got a nice 23-2 record with it, could have been 25-0 if i paid more attention to my games but the team works and thats all i care about so ill be posting it here for yall to try it out or maybe even make it better, the idea is there :3


pokepaste: https://pokepast.es/a2a3c0510c33a3ff

team explaination:

this team is a bit weird to pilot because we got alot of abilities we want to active as soon as possible right? leading ninetales into aurora veil is pretty free and gives us an easy time into doing so and also its a good setup chance for sweepers like calyrex and baxcalibur, team is a lil weak to hazards but we got a max HP defog scizor so we should be fine, overall the team is pretty scary as long as we play correctly, team is also slightly weak to heatran so we need to offensively pressure it with our crawdaunt, we can eventually chip it and sweep with bax or calyrex terastalizing infront of it and tera blasting it into a KO

things we can consider to change:

u-turn over knock off on sciz, i like knock off for the switching in heatrans, its not a big reason so u-turn is totally understandable over it
nasty plot over encore on ninetales, i think encore is good to trap setup mons or trap hazard mons and whatnot, its good so we can stay pressing but nasty plot with snow and fluffy support can also make ninetales a scary fast setup mon if needed
crabhammer over liquidation on crawdaunt, i dont like losing cuz of a miss but thats just a personal choice, its true we dont miss those vs no guard teams in case, pick whichever one yall prefer

I like the team but 2 statements in your first paragraph rub me the wrong way. How is caly- ice not a threat in the current meta as it is the core component for physical HO sweeper teams along with caly itself stopping harvest teams (if as one was shared correctly then the entire team would shut down harvest teams). Secondly caly- ice does not synergize well with lycanroc as glacial lance is not boosted by tough claws.

Either way if it were me caly- ice would be one of the first mons on my list to be suspect tested

 

[excitedly ava]

before the suspect test ends i wanna just share my thoughts on a mon that fits REALLY well on Rain if Kyogre gets banned

Hide

Tentacruel @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Clear Body
- Rapid Spin
- Knock Off / Toxic
- Flip Turn / Sludge Bomb / Toxic Spikes
- Toxic Spikes / Surf

i'm honestly really surprised this hasn't gotten more usage - decent special bulk, base 100 speed, tons of utility in Knock Off/Rapid Spin along with three amazing abilities in Clear Body, Liquid Ooze, and Rain Dish, all of which complement Rain's archetype beautifully. I really hope to see it more on the ladder since I believe it will honestly be a turning point for Rain if Kyogre is banned, turning it into a more defensive archetype as a whole.