ok so wanted to play adv again despite hating it for the better part of a year now cause the drops seemed fun and the meta seemed less virginious - the tier is definitely better and despite there being some weeks where i was kinda indifferent on ideas i think overall the tier is headed in a fun direction, operating under the assumption that swellow gets banned and the other two are free (that being said, i wouldnt even be that upset if swellow was unbanned but w/e)
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https://pokepast.es/5d25e965b5447cc8
first week so i wanted to mess around with some fun stuff without straying too far off the beaten path. from testing early on i figured that sunny day would be the best arcanine set; had both fblast and overheat here to ensure fatter kangs get booted outside of sun, but espeed is also a fine enough option for rking purposes. the haunter set is really fun as well, destiny bond is haunter's best quality imo and sub salac can make for some super obnoxious scenarios. the rest of the team is standard enough so not a major need to go in depth, but i do think stoise is better in this meta than it was before, and i have it here as a spinner instead of tenta for the bulk.
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https://pokepast.es/b64016cc5a1ca762
lanturn is a really fun mon to use given its typing and ability, and i figured it would be interesting to work with this week. it has a pretty flexible movepool that allows for a lot of variation. usually ive used toxtect boltbeam but i went with surf and twave instead, to serve as a better arcanine check and to allow increase the odds for solrock sub shenanigans to come into play respectively. typically i use reflect, sometimes toxic or hp grass on solrocks but sub was an osgoode tech that when coupled with paralysis can make for some major nonsense. rounded it out with some flying spam, wanted to make use of both gligar and swellow's breaking capabilties for each other. iron tail gligar supports swellow a lot thanks to nuking solrock lunatone and cradily, the last of which has become a viable mon again in this meta.
not going to paste the import because it's not my team, but i did wanna talk about stall briefly because it gets used very rarely, partly for good reason but imo it has a high ceiling. the main issues with it are that you have to be pretty delicate (but not passive) in your play, and if you get a bit of bad luck then the game just falls apart and you're left with not that many outs. i think the most flexible slots are stoise and muk, the other 4 are irreplaceable. stoise spins but doesnt necessarily die as fast as tenta to physical hits, and mean look muk can cheese a bunch of nonsense if positioned correctly. ran into a metang, lunatone, AND a gligar in my game and muk still managed to put in a ton of work. however, you can replace it with other wincons like cm slowking or sd vileplume.
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https://pokepast.es/91b2166e38cf5b6c
probably the most standard team i used all tour, and easily the most boring. obv this sorta playstyle isnt bad but i think it just sorta lends itself to being a drag and uninteresting, especially in a mirror. as such i dont actually have a lot to say about it, but bu bull is probably the most obnoxious pokemon in the tier.
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https://pokepast.es/3a31131d091269ed
early on ish in the season pearl gave me the idea of wisp taunt haunter with a shit ton of pdef, which allows you to disrupt p much any common team, especially with spikes up. still have to play p cautiously with it though. other t han that it is basically the same conceptually as the week 1 team, save for the general tempo and the addition of sd stun spore plume, a set that has seen a p big uptick this tour and seems to have overtaken the typical demon plume as its best set.
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https://pokepast.es/0c6346c5351c1277
knew i wanted to ho once because why not, and i was starting to get kinda unsure of what worked against particular opponents at this point. this is based around the old double spike hyper offenses i made in 2020-21, except this time i just figured id abandon the "double" part entirely - also very similar to the team of garay's below LOL. you can still use double spikes on this team though. this teams a lot less defensively than earlier variations, though, given the replacement of solrock for golem, scyther for swellow, and regular kanga for....endrev kanga. it didn't actually do a whole lot in the game but it was something i had just decided would be good a few hours before after i had figured sub endeavor swellow was gonna suck on this team. focus punch golem is a menace btw, props to heysup for coming up with that set.
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https://pokepast.es/68bba76d5ab79a64
another scyther ampharos tenta team...this time its marginally cooler than the last though, as it has a fallen from grace walrus and a metang!! both of which i think deserve some love. again though there's not a whole lot ot say about the team itself. :v
the following team isnt actually mine, but garay had asked me to write about it for him
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https://pokepast.es/2c316d6859ca80b5
thats right baby. its a pikachu. speaking honestly this is probably the best way to go about doing elec spam, because pikachu is a massive prick to switch into. almost always 2hkoing kanga with a volt tackle (pretty much always with a spike up) is not an easy feat for special attackers in this tier. in doing so you allow electrode to go buck wild as well, who has endure salac for weather insurance. the kanga set forgoes rest here because on these types of teams you dont really need rest that badly anyway. back qwil is interesting because its still great at doing what it would in the lead slot, but lead kanga has some better mus, mostly not folding to elec / haunter / psychic / glalie leads. having qwilfish in this position gives it a bit more staying power, letting it get in a bit more easily and therefore easing it in terms of getting spikes up. normal spam is also a strong concept here and functions similarly to the elecs, with hp steel swellow to dunk on cradily and the floaty rocks. finally golem provides a little more defensive backbone and makes it so that you have a good enough switch in to normals and scyther if needed. triple boom is a big boon to have on these teams because it is pretty much always insta progress.
as far as sets go there wasnt many things i thought of this season that were too crazy but i did try to work with some fun stuff;
michelle T (Kangaskhan) @ Salac Berry
Ability: Early Bird
EVs: 52 HP / 252 Atk / 204 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Return
- Reversal
- Shadow Ball
- Endure
this isnt really creative by any means, but it can pull some stupid shit late game. you could argue linoone might be better but i think linoone is a corny pokemon so never really bothered.
Swellow @ Sharp Beak
Ability: Guts
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Substitute
- Endeavor
- Hidden Power [Flying]
- Toxic
a very stupid set that is in most cases inferior to choice band, but can be cool on some flying spam teams with a scyther and or gligar (or ninjask?) to allow for some trades. a lot of things can go wrong with it and cb is usually more consistent and requires less fucking around.
Pupitar @ Leftovers
Ability: Shed Skin
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Rock Slide
- Earthquake
- Hidden Power [Bug]
love this guy on hyper offense. obviously it is very awkward to fit, very awkward to set up, and unfortunately needs +2 to outrun scyther / jolly to outrun tentacruel. butttttt it really punishes those mono normal kang amph tenta boring ass teams. you can potentially do salac over leftovers, or maybe soft sand, but i havent really ran any calcs on it.
thanks to
Lily and
Jade for drafting me - sorry i couldnt do as well as i hoped but thats mons for u...big thanks to everyone who tested with me and listened to me ramble, wouldve been lost without your perspective