So back when we were doing the SWF Ubers Cup, before I had my match with rockem I spent the whole day trying to come up with a good Ubers team designed to beat the traditional Ubers stall (Lugia/Forry/Latias/Blissey/Giratina-O/filler). I had played Ubers stall a ton and because of that I knew what its biggest weaknesses were: Darkrai and Dialga. After a lot of playing around, I decided on a team with an offensive core of SubDarkrai and Mixed Dialga with Giratina-O and Specs Kyogre as revenge killers, a SR supporter, and Rayquaza as the lead. The team did ok on the shoddy ladder but I wasn't very confident in it overall.
Then came my match with rockem. I had played rockem on the ladder in the past and knew that he wasn't terribly familiar with Ubers. So I was surprised when he beat my stall team with a team that was exponentially better than the other teams I had seen him playing. I'm fairly certain that he 3-0'd me at least and after I was done ****ting my pants I had to do some soul searching as to whether or not I was willing to take into battle the team I had literally made that same day. I bit the bullet and used that team and, to my surprise, it won. I found out later that he was using two of Writer's teams, which explains a lot.
Almost immediately after that, I contacted Writer and Riddle to ask them for their opinions on the team. This was conducted in PMs so a lot of what is going to be in this post is going to be copypasta'd from there. Riddle's biggest immediate concern with the team was that, although it was very solid overall, it had no real answer to Garchomp. After a lot of brainstorming we came up with a rather unorthodox lead. While a lot of things on this team are unorthodox, the lead especially is...well, let's just go into it now and you'll see what I mean.
Poker Face (Mewtwo) @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Pressure
EVs: 36 HP / 220 Spd / 252 SAtk
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Aura Sphere
- Ice Beam
- Shadow Ball
- Trick
Not your typical lead is it? It's true that it looks weird...really weird...but when you run down how it does against the other leads in the metagame it starts to make more sense.
Against Deoxys-S he can either Trick it into Taunt or Stealth Rock (a lot of players think I'm running Taunt Mewtwo for some reason...lol) or, if I'm feeling saucy, I can Shadow Ball right off the bat which will, at the very least, break a sash. Against Deoxys and Deoxys-A, Extremespeed does no more than 40% to you, not enough for a 2HKO, meaning that you can Trick a Scarf onto them and Shadow Ball them to death before they have time to Mirror Coat, set up rocks, kill you, or do anything else that's significant. It's worth noting, though, that Shadow Ball will 2HKO you if used by either Deoxys or Deoxys-A, although Deoxys-A leads generally don't carry the move.
Dialga can come close to OHKOing this lead with Draco Meteor (usually what they will lead with if they assume it is a Taunt lead) and Dragon Pulse will 2HKO, but nothing else it has is threatening and Aura Sphere is a clean 2HKO, even after lefties, with the worst case scenario being that you come up 6% short on either hit and are forced to face a Dialga with an astronomical 12% health due to lefties (though with Lum, Dialga will always be 2HKO'd).
Groudon, Rayquaza, Shaymin-S, Forretress, and Mew are all fairly easy for this set to deal with. Mewtwo outspeeds and OHKOs the first 4 with the exception of Groudon, who is only 2HKO'd and Timid Scarf Shaymin-S, who just barely outspeeds Mewtwo and has a good chance of 3HKOing with Air Slash but is screwed if he chooses any other move. Forretress gets Tricked into something not in his favor no matter what. If he's Tricked into Stealth Rock, I know my opponent is going to switch out (likely to a Mewtwo counter) and I plan accordingly. If he's tricked into Toxic Spikes, Payback, or Gyro Ball I bring in Dialga and kill it. If he's Tricked into Spikes, Earthquake, or Rapid Spin (?) I bring in Giratina-O and kill it. I said Mew was easy to deal with, but if they U-Turn out the first turn I'm stuck with a Mewtwo that's locked into Shadow Ball and has half his health remaining. Otherwise, Shadow Ball is an easy 2HKO.
The question I'm sure you're all asking is how does this do against Darkrai. Well the answer may surprise you. This Mewtwo DOES NOT OHKO Darkrai with Aura Sphere 100% of the time. However, Darkrai cannot outspeed Mewtwo (thanks to the EVs), Dark Pulse will not OHKO, Dark Void means that they're switching it out right away, and Trick means that they effectively wasted a turn. This lead is also great for baiting out Darkrai (as well as other Mewtwo counters).
Besides being a lead, Mewtwo also has utility against a lot of other pokemon. The coverage of Aura Sphere, Ice Beam, and Shadow Ball hits everything relevant except Kyogre and the OU steel pokemon that show up from time to time (Forry, Scizor, Metagross, etc.) for super effective damage. His speed and special attack are his biggest strengths and they are more than welcome on this team. He's Mewtwo, what more do you need to know?
Kyogre and Giratina-O beat this lead. However, I have plenty of things on this team that can deal with Kyogre and Giratina-O and Mewtwo doesn't go down without severely damaging both of them first (either by taking off half of G-O's life with Shadow Ball or by tricking scarf onto Kyogre and switching to an appropriate counter to what he's locked into). Lead Scizor and all the other usual Mewtwo counters also beat this lead for obvious reasons.
Okay, so now that I wrote a book on my lead let's move on to the rest of the team. All the rest of the sets are more standard.
Enter Sandman (Darkrai) @ Salac Berry
Trait: Bad Dreams
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 SAtk / 4 SDef
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Dark Void
- Dark Pulse
- Nasty Plot
- Substitute
Easily the best sweeper of this team. As I said, I designed this team to beat stall, and one of the best ways I could think of was to use sub NP Darkrai (I forgot about Focus Punch at the time, but I still like this build since Focus Punch is only really good against Dialga and Blissey). I started off building it as a normal NP Darkrai with Sub and couldn't decide on the item. Lefties would be ok but lack power, Life Orb would reduce my sweeping abilities after entry hazards+sub, Lum Berry seems pointless with Sub, and Focus Sash seems pointless for a non-lead. Then I saw the SubSalac build and fell in love. The added speed has been great to me and I really, really like this build. Focus Blast isn't very needed because after a NP or two you can OHKO almost anything with Dark Pulse, including Blissey.
Iron Man (Dialga) @ Life Orb
Trait: Pressure
EVs: 120 HP / 136 Atk / 252 SAtk
Quiet Nature (+SAtk, -Spd)
- Draco Meteor
- Brick Break
- Thunder
- Flamethrower
For Dialga I was a lot less sure of what to do. I originally went with a Mild nature, but then Writer and Riddle told me how much better the Quiet build was, so I went with that and it worked wonders. I also had minor issues with the moveset at first, but right now I think it's ok. I use this as a sort of catch-all mixed attacker and use it to answer any threats that I might not be able to deal with for whatever reason.
Purple Rain (Kyogre) @ Choice Specs
Trait: Drizzle
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Spd / 252 SAtk
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Surf
- Thunder
- Ice Beam
- Water Spout
Oh look, it's the most popular set in the format. In this team Kyogre is just a hard hitter for my opponent to try and deal with. He can also serve as a late game backup sweeper should anything happen to Darkrai. He's just something to attack things basically. I send him in, watch how my opponent responds, and usually he takes a few things down on the way.
Sanitarium (Giratina-O) @ Griseous Orb
Trait: Levitate
IVs: 31 HP/ 31 Atk/ 30 Def / 30 Spe / 30 SpA/ 31 SpD
EVs: 248 Atk / 196 Spd / 64 SAtk
Naive Nature (+Spd, -SDef)
- Draco Meteor
- Dragon Claw
- Shadow Sneak
- Hidden Power [Fire]
Originally I had Stallbreaker Giratina-O. And it. Was. Terrible. After I went to this guy I had so much more success.
I also used to have Aura Sphere on him instead of HP Fire, anf it worked ok. The extra EVs gave me a bit of an extra kick in all the important stats - Atk, speed, and SpA - which would make a big difference against other G-Os. The type coverage disparity was a minimal issue...or so I thought. Unfortunately, running Mewtwo on your team makes you automatically weak to Scizor, so I was forced to go back to HP Fire on this guy. This time I'm using the alternate spread which gives me more attack at the cost of defense, so we'll see how that works out.
Mr Blue Sky (Groudon) @ Leftovers
Trait: Drought
EVs: 252 HP / 56 Def / 40 Spd / 160 SDef
Impish Nature (+Def, -SAtk)
- Earthquake
- Roar
- Stealth Rock
- Stone Edge
I settled on this guy after some testing of other SR users. First I tried Deoxys-S, who worked ok but just didn't feel too good overall. Next I tried Forry, who worked well until I realized that TSpikes is dissynergistic with Darkrai. So finally I settled on this guy, and he's been working pretty well. His phazing ability comes in handy from time to time, EQ and SE provide very solid coverage and give me a potential Lugia counter, and of course he sets up rocks. The only thing I'm really questioning are the EVs. I took this set from a stall RMT so this is probably more defensive than what I really need. I think at the very least I should go Adamant. It's not really the entry hazard abuse I use Roar for, it's just generally taking care of boosters. Groudon is also a bulky dude and helps out in that respect too. One thing I've found can be beneficial to aggressive teams is that having one defensive pokemon to hold everything together can really help it along.
So yeah, that's about it. Discuss.
Then came my match with rockem. I had played rockem on the ladder in the past and knew that he wasn't terribly familiar with Ubers. So I was surprised when he beat my stall team with a team that was exponentially better than the other teams I had seen him playing. I'm fairly certain that he 3-0'd me at least and after I was done ****ting my pants I had to do some soul searching as to whether or not I was willing to take into battle the team I had literally made that same day. I bit the bullet and used that team and, to my surprise, it won. I found out later that he was using two of Writer's teams, which explains a lot.
Almost immediately after that, I contacted Writer and Riddle to ask them for their opinions on the team. This was conducted in PMs so a lot of what is going to be in this post is going to be copypasta'd from there. Riddle's biggest immediate concern with the team was that, although it was very solid overall, it had no real answer to Garchomp. After a lot of brainstorming we came up with a rather unorthodox lead. While a lot of things on this team are unorthodox, the lead especially is...well, let's just go into it now and you'll see what I mean.
Poker Face (Mewtwo) @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Pressure
EVs: 36 HP / 220 Spd / 252 SAtk
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Aura Sphere
- Ice Beam
- Shadow Ball
- Trick
Not your typical lead is it? It's true that it looks weird...really weird...but when you run down how it does against the other leads in the metagame it starts to make more sense.
Against Deoxys-S he can either Trick it into Taunt or Stealth Rock (a lot of players think I'm running Taunt Mewtwo for some reason...lol) or, if I'm feeling saucy, I can Shadow Ball right off the bat which will, at the very least, break a sash. Against Deoxys and Deoxys-A, Extremespeed does no more than 40% to you, not enough for a 2HKO, meaning that you can Trick a Scarf onto them and Shadow Ball them to death before they have time to Mirror Coat, set up rocks, kill you, or do anything else that's significant. It's worth noting, though, that Shadow Ball will 2HKO you if used by either Deoxys or Deoxys-A, although Deoxys-A leads generally don't carry the move.
Dialga can come close to OHKOing this lead with Draco Meteor (usually what they will lead with if they assume it is a Taunt lead) and Dragon Pulse will 2HKO, but nothing else it has is threatening and Aura Sphere is a clean 2HKO, even after lefties, with the worst case scenario being that you come up 6% short on either hit and are forced to face a Dialga with an astronomical 12% health due to lefties (though with Lum, Dialga will always be 2HKO'd).
Groudon, Rayquaza, Shaymin-S, Forretress, and Mew are all fairly easy for this set to deal with. Mewtwo outspeeds and OHKOs the first 4 with the exception of Groudon, who is only 2HKO'd and Timid Scarf Shaymin-S, who just barely outspeeds Mewtwo and has a good chance of 3HKOing with Air Slash but is screwed if he chooses any other move. Forretress gets Tricked into something not in his favor no matter what. If he's Tricked into Stealth Rock, I know my opponent is going to switch out (likely to a Mewtwo counter) and I plan accordingly. If he's tricked into Toxic Spikes, Payback, or Gyro Ball I bring in Dialga and kill it. If he's Tricked into Spikes, Earthquake, or Rapid Spin (?) I bring in Giratina-O and kill it. I said Mew was easy to deal with, but if they U-Turn out the first turn I'm stuck with a Mewtwo that's locked into Shadow Ball and has half his health remaining. Otherwise, Shadow Ball is an easy 2HKO.
The question I'm sure you're all asking is how does this do against Darkrai. Well the answer may surprise you. This Mewtwo DOES NOT OHKO Darkrai with Aura Sphere 100% of the time. However, Darkrai cannot outspeed Mewtwo (thanks to the EVs), Dark Pulse will not OHKO, Dark Void means that they're switching it out right away, and Trick means that they effectively wasted a turn. This lead is also great for baiting out Darkrai (as well as other Mewtwo counters).
Besides being a lead, Mewtwo also has utility against a lot of other pokemon. The coverage of Aura Sphere, Ice Beam, and Shadow Ball hits everything relevant except Kyogre and the OU steel pokemon that show up from time to time (Forry, Scizor, Metagross, etc.) for super effective damage. His speed and special attack are his biggest strengths and they are more than welcome on this team. He's Mewtwo, what more do you need to know?
Kyogre and Giratina-O beat this lead. However, I have plenty of things on this team that can deal with Kyogre and Giratina-O and Mewtwo doesn't go down without severely damaging both of them first (either by taking off half of G-O's life with Shadow Ball or by tricking scarf onto Kyogre and switching to an appropriate counter to what he's locked into). Lead Scizor and all the other usual Mewtwo counters also beat this lead for obvious reasons.
Okay, so now that I wrote a book on my lead let's move on to the rest of the team. All the rest of the sets are more standard.
Enter Sandman (Darkrai) @ Salac Berry
Trait: Bad Dreams
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 SAtk / 4 SDef
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Dark Void
- Dark Pulse
- Nasty Plot
- Substitute
Easily the best sweeper of this team. As I said, I designed this team to beat stall, and one of the best ways I could think of was to use sub NP Darkrai (I forgot about Focus Punch at the time, but I still like this build since Focus Punch is only really good against Dialga and Blissey). I started off building it as a normal NP Darkrai with Sub and couldn't decide on the item. Lefties would be ok but lack power, Life Orb would reduce my sweeping abilities after entry hazards+sub, Lum Berry seems pointless with Sub, and Focus Sash seems pointless for a non-lead. Then I saw the SubSalac build and fell in love. The added speed has been great to me and I really, really like this build. Focus Blast isn't very needed because after a NP or two you can OHKO almost anything with Dark Pulse, including Blissey.
Iron Man (Dialga) @ Life Orb
Trait: Pressure
EVs: 120 HP / 136 Atk / 252 SAtk
Quiet Nature (+SAtk, -Spd)
- Draco Meteor
- Brick Break
- Thunder
- Flamethrower
For Dialga I was a lot less sure of what to do. I originally went with a Mild nature, but then Writer and Riddle told me how much better the Quiet build was, so I went with that and it worked wonders. I also had minor issues with the moveset at first, but right now I think it's ok. I use this as a sort of catch-all mixed attacker and use it to answer any threats that I might not be able to deal with for whatever reason.
Purple Rain (Kyogre) @ Choice Specs
Trait: Drizzle
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Spd / 252 SAtk
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Surf
- Thunder
- Ice Beam
- Water Spout
Oh look, it's the most popular set in the format. In this team Kyogre is just a hard hitter for my opponent to try and deal with. He can also serve as a late game backup sweeper should anything happen to Darkrai. He's just something to attack things basically. I send him in, watch how my opponent responds, and usually he takes a few things down on the way.
Sanitarium (Giratina-O) @ Griseous Orb
Trait: Levitate
IVs: 31 HP/ 31 Atk/ 30 Def / 30 Spe / 30 SpA/ 31 SpD
EVs: 248 Atk / 196 Spd / 64 SAtk
Naive Nature (+Spd, -SDef)
- Draco Meteor
- Dragon Claw
- Shadow Sneak
- Hidden Power [Fire]
Originally I had Stallbreaker Giratina-O. And it. Was. Terrible. After I went to this guy I had so much more success.
I also used to have Aura Sphere on him instead of HP Fire, anf it worked ok. The extra EVs gave me a bit of an extra kick in all the important stats - Atk, speed, and SpA - which would make a big difference against other G-Os. The type coverage disparity was a minimal issue...or so I thought. Unfortunately, running Mewtwo on your team makes you automatically weak to Scizor, so I was forced to go back to HP Fire on this guy. This time I'm using the alternate spread which gives me more attack at the cost of defense, so we'll see how that works out.
Mr Blue Sky (Groudon) @ Leftovers
Trait: Drought
EVs: 252 HP / 56 Def / 40 Spd / 160 SDef
Impish Nature (+Def, -SAtk)
- Earthquake
- Roar
- Stealth Rock
- Stone Edge
I settled on this guy after some testing of other SR users. First I tried Deoxys-S, who worked ok but just didn't feel too good overall. Next I tried Forry, who worked well until I realized that TSpikes is dissynergistic with Darkrai. So finally I settled on this guy, and he's been working pretty well. His phazing ability comes in handy from time to time, EQ and SE provide very solid coverage and give me a potential Lugia counter, and of course he sets up rocks. The only thing I'm really questioning are the EVs. I took this set from a stall RMT so this is probably more defensive than what I really need. I think at the very least I should go Adamant. It's not really the entry hazard abuse I use Roar for, it's just generally taking care of boosters. Groudon is also a bulky dude and helps out in that respect too. One thing I've found can be beneficial to aggressive teams is that having one defensive pokemon to hold everything together can really help it along.
So yeah, that's about it. Discuss.
