SM OU Brainless HO (reached top 11 which means the team is good right? .... right?)

[BAGANHA13]

Introduction​

Hello and welcome to my first rmt post! Ive been around here for a while now but never really took any effort in making a real team (not that this one took much effort or is a real team for that matter) let alone post one, i just saw myself yoinking teams good players used from replays i would see, everyday i would wake up, eat my breakfast and browse through showdown replays to see if anything would catch my eye and a few hours later use that on the ladder. Dont know why i felt like changing all of a sudden, its like stealing gourmet food from a 5 star hotel but giving it up for a shitty cake you made, perhaps pride or maybe the fact that playing this meta has come to be so tedious that my only way to enjoy it is resorting to teambuilding. Ive been able to get consistently to 1900s with this team (yes that is good for my standards) and overall a good record to back it up, however i did play on a old alt, meaning that the records/gxe and even the beginning of the climb were already skewed, probably shouldve done it on a fresh alt but fuck that, once you see the team you either think its stupid or stupid enough to use it on the ladder and thats all that matters.
Why HO the first thing you built? The title says it all, composition wise i think its the easiest and arguably the easiest to play with as well, you can give that title to stall but you actually need to be good to build one, unless you just take 5 of the same mons and slap the one change to that team and call it your own and as much i love to resort to such matters in the 1700s my attention spam that im willing to put in this game is not enough to climb my way ttt using it.
https://imgur.com/pj3PaUN
Not top 10 cause im bad and choked the final game, anyways i felt editting this part cause i guess it gives a better look for the team.

Porygon-Z @ Normalium Z
Ability: Adaptability
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Shadow Ball
- Nasty Plot
- Recover
- Conversion
​

I believe it was ben gay who was the first to use this specific set, back in 2016 sm, tho he didnt opted to go for the max hp route, basically my line of thought was too abuse the defense buffs you obtain from z conversion and make up for the lack of spatk with nasty plot and suprisingly its not complete shit, this thing is able to set up in front of AV mag, AV tang, defensive lando, ferrothorn (just watch out for twave), clef (same thing), gliscor, mew, rotom, and a bunch more specific sets like spdef bulu etc. after a nasty plot (+3) pz is able to ohko mons such as both zards, clef, tankchomp, gliscor, 87.5% for gren after one sr or spike, offensive heatran, keld, kyurem black and basically any thing that isnt a normal type or ttar (you could really tell i was browsing through showdown and making the calcs on the spot couldnt you?), he also 1v1s the fat setup psychics like aa+cm reuni and cm+ stored power mega latias which is amazing. Hes basically the end game sweeper, in most MUs he always has a good chance to sweep if you position yourself correctly, from my experience the ladder didnt seem to take this particular set into account and maybe thats why i had such success with it, that probably goes for most of my team.

Mamoswine @ Focus Sash
Ability: Oblivious
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
IVs: 0 HP
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Ice Shard
- Endeavor
​

Everyone is probably acquainted with this set, i guess ill explain why i use it, basically between sr users such as drill or lando i dont see much utility from them after they got up the rocks, drill is very consistent at getting rocks whilst keeping opposing hazards away but it doesnt pose any offensive pressure whatsoever, lando doesnt even do that much, unless you use that damned sr defog set, and only gives an opening for another mon after it booms, i think with this mamo set i get the most out of it after rocks are up. Endeavor, while predictable, seems to put a lot of players in a tight position and falling into its "demise", basically its hard to chip mamo to a point where endeavor doesnt do much to them, even just a moonblast from clef can go a long way throughout the game, mamo also adds a nice electric immunity, which this team certainly aprecciates. 0 ivs in hp so you get more out of endeavors, the bulk really doesnt matter much, youre still taking chip from koko's uturns and magearna is always able to bring you down to sashes so its just a minor optimization where you dont really lose anything.

Charizard-Mega-X @ Charizardite X
Ability: Tough Claws
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Flame Charge
- Dragon Claw
- Earthquake
​

Yup, were not done with the stupid sets yet, an idea from njnp a while back, tho i believe he used dragon rush of all things, apprently that shit did 80 to defensive landos after a sd lmao, however ill stick with dragon claw, already got serperior's leaf storms to worry about. While defensive landos arent as popular as they were before, this set still serves as a great way to break fatter builds, spdef pex has a next to guaranteed chance of getting one shotted by eq after an sd, gliscor takes at least 80% from +2 dclaw, same goes for mew, its basically the best thing you have to break stall with, flame charge is there so it doesnt become complete fodder to offense and somewhat mitigates its average speed, its a big toll youre having since it isnt a powerful move by any means, the only way youre posing a threat to stuff like tang, celesteela or skarm is if you got an sd up, i tried using blitz but it becomes too easy of a target against more offensively inclined teams. A regular dd set works pretty fine tho at the cost of having a less wallbreaking power, it would also hurt my ego really bad if i wasnt using something original (stupid) and it gives you people a reason to actually read this whole text which it wouldnt happen had it been a regular dd set :). Outrage was something i considered but never tried cause i hate getting locked on a move whose stab isnt that realiable tbh, and with fini getting more popular by the day i see it more of a liability than anything, its just a bit too risky for my taste, just as dragon rush is.

Serperior @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Contrary
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Leaf Storm
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Glare
- Defog/Knock off
​

Serp provides speed to the team while giving me another win condition, keeping threats like ash gren, kartana, mega swampert in rain and the sort in check, the third move is there for all the reasons we know, honestly its just as important as leaf storm and really effective if youre good at forcing switches a lot, last move is up to you, defog and knock are both good options, tho this team has a spinner i dont like overly relying on it, specially since it doesnt really have much longevity and i personally hate playing the hazard game, knock gives you a great option to at least hinder common switches like chansey, celesteela, ferro etc. even shit like aromatherapy can work here as a last ditch effort to get your team healed up and would give you some room to be more reckless with your mons.

Cloyster @ Focus Sash
Ability: Skill Link
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Shell Smash
- Icicle Spear
- Spikes/rock blast/explosion
- Rapid Spin
​

Cloyster seems a bit weird in this team and in general, but while i was browsing the underrated section i came up with this set provided by Jojobobo, its essentially the same used in ubers but i never really saw how good it actually is in OU as well, taking advantage of lando, drill and diancie leads, this mon is able to kill them and effectively spin way the hazards, they either attack or get up rocks, either way they wont stay up as you ohko all three after shell smash while keeping your sash intact so if they did get up the rocks youll be able to spin them away thanks to sash. Jolly is ran cause it outspeeds scarf kart at +2 while also being able to kill it with a icicle spear. Spikes provide a nice way to further pressure the team even if cloyster is gone but like i said im not too keen on going for the hazard game, specially when a zard is in my team, maybe im just a pussy, anyways im saying this because other options are good as well such as rock blast which gives you a way to ohko grens and kyurem black as well as something to hit volc and victini with, explosion is just a big hit reagardless of the target so if you wanna go stupid agro with it by all means, just dont throw it away when youll still need to spin. Also dont count out the fact that this mon can win you the game, ice is generally a poorly covered typing so even if you are just resorting to that one stab it can still be enough to win you the game

Tapu Lele @ Assault Vest
Ability: Psychic Surge
EVs: 96 HP / 252 SpA / 160 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Psychic
- Psyshock
- Moonblast
- Focus Blast
​

With HO its very limited the amount of options you have that serve as a defensive backbone that helps you switch out a pokemon without sacking something, its even harder to have one that can still apply offensive pressure, with AV lele i believe i have found something that can somewhat checkmark those two things. It serves as a nice way to not completely get overwhelmed by threats like ash gren, koko, torn t, keldeo, mega zam or even opposing leles, it also serves as a nice semi-wallbreaker as the modest nature help quite a lot, having a 64.5% chance to 2hko chansey after rocks, comfortably 2hko clefs, and effectively taking out stuff like no hp torn after rocks ,koko, kyurem black, kommo-o and ash gren. Psychic terrain also gives an immunity to priority which can be very nice for the entire team has it negates hits like sucker punch mega mawile, bp mega scizor, water shuriken gren or aqua jet daunt. EV spread was kinda lazy of me, just enough to creep max speed mega ttar and then dump it all to hp. To note that this isnt some AV magearna, its not gonna be switchin to kokos and grens all day long, its HO and you have to play aggressive to get the edge over your oppponent.

Threats

- scarf or speed boosting blacephalon just destroys my entire team, lele can take one +1 shadow ball, you also have sash mamo to revenge kill it, the problem is that you need to keep hazards away, if neither of those cant work, sacking serp to glare it is the only option.

- obviously as 4/6 mons setup, unaware clef can prove to be quite the nuisance against this team, id say this is where spikes shine the most on cloyster and being able to abuse hazards, lele can threaten it out with psychic but definitely needs help from hazards to sucessfully beat it down, if somehow you can get mamo low and bait the clef in that is also a good way to do it.

+

-drill under sand is a massive threat that outspeeds my entire team, however they do share a weakness in common with mamo, however this by no means makes it easier to deal with as it cant even ohko ttars plus there is the chance of iron head flinching, if the drill doesnt have an sd up the best thing to do is trying to glare it with serp and neutrilize it.

-pretty much a threat to HO in general, while it shouldnt have an oportunity to setup an sd it still remains a big threat, if it somehow was able to do so however, only the sashers will be able to handle him, if rocks are up its game.

- if its z you beter predict it, at +1 it ohkos everything, you know the deal, keep those sashes and maybe you can beat it.

mega mawile (couldnt get a sprite of it) -at +2 it ohkos everything, if you can get psychic terrain up, mamo ohkos it, otherwise if lele got a psychic on him, zard x can revenge kill it with eq

-rain obviously has the better matchup against any HO, your best chance is to weaken ferro and kill mag, using pz and lele and trying to sweep the rest with serp, if torn t comes at 50% serp just sweeps, this is also a good oportunity for mamo to get some endeavors is possible, most mons have no choice but to weaken him to a significant amount such as swampert, choice locked gren that isnt in water shuriken or even pelipper/ferro if youre predicting them to attack.

-z vic is a bitch but you can always glare it if need be.

-luckily havent played against this much, but it only took me one game to realize that yes, it kinda just beats my team, it really is the best mon to abuse setup and pretty much effectively revenge kills anything that it transforms into so thats a gg if ive ever seen one.

Prolly a whole lotta shit that i didnt say but some of you will be kind to mention it.

Conclusion​

No replays cause i dont really give a shit about em, there is only one of me playing some guy and getting crushed by him so i guess you can watch that one, i know the sets are stupid but there easy to understand why they are like the way they are.
Despite what you think of this im proud of myself with this team, never have i really gotten success using my own teams before and while calling it a success to achieve 1900s with 80 gxe is a stretch if not a complete lie, im still glad i made something out of my own head, with no help and got the results i wanted, now pls proceed to shittalk this post idc but i will read it and it better be funny as fuck because if you havent noticed by either this team or my dumb humor thats all im here for, any serious take will also be apreacciated of course, have a nice day.

Importable

Porygon-Z @ Normalium Z
Ability: Adaptability
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Shadow Ball
- Nasty Plot
- Recover
- Conversion

Mamoswine @ Focus Sash
Ability: Oblivious
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Ice Shard
- Endeavor

Charizard-Mega-X @ Charizardite X
Ability: Tough Claws
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Flame Charge
- Dragon Claw
- Earthquake

Serperior @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Contrary
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Leaf Storm
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Glare
- Defog

Cloyster @ Focus Sash
Ability: Skill Link
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Shell Smash
- Icicle Spear
- Spikes
- Rapid Spin

Tapu Lele @ Assault Vest
Ability: Psychic Surge
EVs: 96 HP / 252 SpA / 160 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Psychic
- Psyshock
- Moonblast
- Focus Blast

 

[sprkl]

Mawile-Mega should do the trick (in colons)


Pretty interesting team :)

 

[ElStefano]

Hey there,
Very creative team, I love it! The porygon Set is very unique, and I think double sash Mamo + Cloyster is a very usefull lead combo on HO, which outclasses the more popular Drill+Gren if you have answers to stall.

Speaking of it, I think that stall gives this team a hard time, since it should be hard for zard to break the unaware user. Since you mainly use it as a breaker, have you tried adamant? And I guess dragon rush would a good option here, even if you hate it...^^

Another way to improve the stall matchup could be changing the typing of P-z. While ghost is probably the best typing vs most offensive teams, it's walled by normals (looking at you chansey, also Mega-Lop could give this team trouble). Dark Pulse has no immunities! But is much worse defensively... So maybe that's not too good of an idea...

And then you have modest Lele for stall, so the matchup isn't too bad. Gimmick: Shadow Ball over Focus Blast to fuck with Jirachi, its main answer on stall. Yes, i hate stall.

Anyway, this where just a few ideas to make this comment a real 'rate', I'm mainly here to tell you that I very much enjoyed your team and creativity! Would love to see some Replays if u manage to overcome your pride and save some :P

 

[BAGANHA13]

Hey there,
Very creative team, I love it! The porygon Set is very unique, and I think double sash Mamo + Cloyster is a very usefull lead combo on HO, which outclasses the more popular Drill+Gren if you have answers to stall.

Speaking of it, I think that stall gives this team a hard time, since it should be hard for zard to break the unaware user. Since you mainly use it as a breaker, have you tried adamant? And I guess dragon rush would a good option here, even if you hate it...^^

Another way to improve the stall matchup could be changing the typing of P-z. While ghost is probably the best typing vs most offensive teams, it's walled by normals (looking at you chansey, also Mega-Lop could give this team trouble). Dark Pulse has no immunities! But is much worse defensively... So maybe that's not too good of an idea...

And then you have modest Lele for stall, so the matchup isn't too bad. Gimmick: Shadow Ball over Focus Blast to fuck with Jirachi, its main answer on stall. Yes, i hate stall.

Anyway, this where just a few ideas to make this comment a real 'rate', I'm mainly here to tell you that I very much enjoyed your team and creativity! Would love to see some Replays if u manage to overcome your pride and save some :P

I wanna start by saying thank you for taking the time to read and comment about my team and tell you that im actually a big fan of your psychic overload team, its the reason why i think much highly of pokemon like scarf serp and probably the reason why i put him in my team to begin with.

You are right, stall is by no means an easy MU to this team and thanks to pokemon like pyukumuku, quag or clef its insanely hard to beat and flat out nigh-impossible if they also have an alolan muk, which coincidentally just walls half my team. Adamant seems a cool option, and while it makes me a target to things like jolly drill, the damage could come in handy, ill be doin some calcs later to see if there is anything it makes it worthy of running it. The problem with dragon rush is that in some games all id really need was dclaw and now im in a situation where i could lose the game because of it, dclaw imo is a good enough move to push thorugh most things that dont resist dragon at +2, the extra power is nice but not worth to risk games for, but not an option id rule out, its just that im not that crazy is all.

Honestly i dont see many typings being superior to ghost, not to mention its the typing that fits this team the best, dark is cool but it makes for a liabiilty to setup against mons like the tapus or magearna, which otherwise ghost could do it easily and thats something i wouldnt want to give up for, i guess psyshock and becoming psychic wouldnt be too bad of a secondary option, would be able to hit targets like the chanseys and lops, not to mention at +3 chansey takes like 70% min from psyshock, it still has an immunity to dark but ghost already had that problem to begin with so i dont see much of a loss. However with this option comes at a cost of not being able to beat the setup bulky psychics like mega latias or reuni, and also not being able to hit targets like victini or mega zam which deal much more damage back to pz even with all the bulk.

Shadow ball was an option i considered for lele, it would be nice to hit stuff like z vic, mew and rachi but having the focus blast and dish out big damage to heatran and ferro is too good to pass, with modest its a garanteed 2hko on both of them and being as annoying as they are to the team, i think its the best move for lele. Plus its not like spdef rachi takes that much from sball.
252+ SpA Tapu Lele Shadow Ball vs. 248 HP / 188+ SpD Jirachi: 146-174 (36.2 - 43.1%) -- 97% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

When it comes to replays, ill think about it, i know some people dont really like having themselves "exposed" just for me to show off how good i am, even though i understand the point of showcasing a replay is to show how the team works and not how good a player is, if your curious you can search the name Baganha on replays, there are like 7 or so of me using that team, most of them are losses and i dont think it would do the team justice (not that this team really deserves any justice) if you were to take any judgement from those games since mostly it was a result of my poorly performance. Again thank you for the input and new ideas, have a nice day :]

 

[ElStefano]

Thanks, I'm glad you liked my team as well =)

I think you are right about Porygon-Z and Lele, my suggestions didn't make too much sense^^ Still, Stall remains an issue... I also agree that in most cases, Dragon Claws accuracy is preferable, but this calc is what brought me to this suggestion:

252+ Atk Tough Claws Charizard-Mega-X Dragon Rush vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Quagsire: 186-220 (47.2 - 55.8%) -- 23.8% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

252+ Atk Tough Claws Charizard-Mega-X Dragon Claw vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Quagsire: 150-177 (38 - 44.9%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

Still up to personal preference, I hope someone can come up with a better idea to help with stall without hurting Zards utility in other matchups :D

 

[MrHands]

Thanks, I'm glad you liked my team as well =)

I think you are right about Porygon-Z and Lele, my suggestions didn't make too much sense^^ Still, Stall remains an issue... I also agree that in most cases, Dragon Claws accuracy is preferable, but this calc is what brought me to this suggestion:

252+ Atk Tough Claws Charizard-Mega-X Dragon Rush vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Quagsire: 186-220 (47.2 - 55.8%) -- 23.8% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

252+ Atk Tough Claws Charizard-Mega-X Dragon Claw vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Quagsire: 150-177 (38 - 44.9%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

Still up to personal preference, I hope someone can come up with a better idea to help with stall without hurting Zards utility in other matchups :D

You would have to catch it on the switch in, hit both times, and roll near max damage every hit. It also worsens his match up against basically everything else as relying on a 75% accurate move to sweep is pretty bad.

If he absolutely wants to fix the stall match up I think he would need to make drastic changes to the team. A single moves change won't be enough.

 

[girlpower199]

This team is amazing I love all the sets on the team especially the Porygon-Z set being able to straight up sweep most teams with it's crazy bulk after the boost and really shocked me as I laddered noticing it being able to tank most super effective hits (even from a mawiles sucker punch) and just wall most passive pokemon and set up nasty plots on them and there are some games where the opponent doesn't have a normal type and porygon can literally 6-0 from team preview. I managed to make it to #7 on the leaderboard with 2016 points in around 12 hours and it's honestly just a fun laddering team to use. Charizard set is also amazing at certain scenarios like a magearna on half health or killing a toxapex after +2 and is a heavily slept on set in my opinion.

The bigget issue wih the team is the stall matchup which is honestly just awful to the point where you should click x on preview but that's expected for hyper offense teams like this especially against things like toxic spikes or some wish passing alolan muk+quagsire kind of thing and has already has been aknowledged and I don't really see a way to fix it without making huge changes to the team

Also, the only change I would make to your team is to change Mamoswines HP IVs from 31 to 0 so that pokemon that are more on the bulkier side like Pivot Tornadus, Celesteela, or Lando get into a more favorable endeavor range after being hit. I do think defog is needed on serperior at all times because usually cloyster can't rapid spin againt anything without losing its sash and is pretty unreliable with a mega which is 4x weak to rocks and shouldn't be risked for extra utility.
Overall, this is a great team and probably one of my favorite takes on a HO team.

 

[BAGANHA13]

This team is amazing I love all the sets on the team especially the Porygon-Z set being able to straight up sweep most teams with it's crazy bulk after the boost and really shocked me as I laddered noticing it being able to tank most super effective hits (even from a mawiles sucker punch) and just wall most passive pokemon and set up nasty plots on them and there are some games where the opponent doesn't have a normal type and porygon can literally 6-0 from team preview. I managed to make it to #7 on the leaderboard with 2016 points in around 12 hours and it's honestly just a fun laddering team to use. Charizard set is also amazing at certain scenarios like a magearna on half health or killing a toxapex after +2 and is a heavily slept on set in my opinion.

The bigget issue wih the team is the stall matchup which is honestly just awful to the point where you should click x on preview but that's expected for hyper offense teams like this especially against things like toxic spikes or some wish passing alolan muk+quagsire kind of thing and has already has been aknowledged and I don't really see a way to fix it without making huge changes to the team

Also, the only change I would make to your team is to change Mamoswines HP IVs from 31 to 0 so that pokemon that are more on the bulkier side like Pivot Tornadus, Celesteela, or Lando get into a more favorable endeavor range after being hit. I do think defog is needed on serperior at all times because usually cloyster can't rapid spin againt anything without losing its sash and is pretty unreliable with a mega which is 4x weak to rocks and shouldn't be risked for extra utility.
Overall, this is a great team and probably one of my favorite takes on a HO team.

Thank you or the kind words, never thought someone would actually want to use this and im glad you enjoyed using it, funny enough not long after i posted the team i started using 0 iv hp on mamo, willl edit that on the post immediately.