Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds
A DW OU Learning Experience by Princess Bri
Dear Smogon, as many of you know me by now, I'm Princess Bri and I'm going to show you the team of mine that reached number one on the Smogon Dream World ladder under the alt "BOOM ITS BRI". This isn't a very hard task for most good players as the ladder is currently sub-par due to the absence of activity on it, though I still believe this is proof to the efficiency of the team. I'll attempt to be as cogent as possible in my examination of the team and the DW Metagame in this RMT. The RMT is mainly for spreading word of DW, and maybe even persuading you to divulge you, yourself to it as it's a very fun metagame. Many people look down upon it because they feel that with threats like Garchomp, Manaphy, and Genesect that DW is basically unplayable and luck based. However, this is very wrong as standard Genesect | Tyranitar | Garchomp | Chandelure | 2 Fillers teams were relatively simple to play against and aren't even unbeatable or "overpowered by any means".
In my beginning stages of Dream World I proceed to use what I considered to be the most broken Pokemon ever, and it fell into the basic "standard sand" mold containing things like Sash Genesect, (who is insanely good, by the way. Try it out!) Keldeo, and Garchomp. However, I was very underwhelmed with the team's effectiveness as a whole, mainly because mirror matches were such an issue due to this kind of team basically ruling the meta. I, myself am also more of a "bulky-offensive" or "semi-stall" player, which an aggressive Sand team doesn't work with, obviously. Instead of attempting to overpower everything, I began to create a list of Pokemon that, in my opinion, were relevant in the metagame, and became to compose a list of each of their checks and counters. I knew that stall was practically impossible with weather in Dream World, because unlike in Standard OU there are many more Pokemon which gain weather effects. For example, Venusaur is 10x better in Dream World than in standard because he beats both of the pink blobs 1v1 due to the fact he has Giga Drain. Other pokemon like Thundurus, Manaphy, and Garchomp also ruin the idea of weatherless stall, meaning I had to choose a weather. I attempted a Rain Stall, but just like Porii Sames I found myself getting 6-0'd by Manaphy (which is outclassed by Keldeo anyways in my opinion), and Hail is pretty much impossible without Soul Dew Lati@s, so, once again I went back to Sand. Since this was going to be a semi-stall team, I opted to choose the lesser-used sand inducer Hippowdon due to his reliable recovery, and also because I knew that between Skarmory and Hippowdon, practically no physical threats could break through my team. My next Pokemon of choice was obviously Excadrill, because he's my late game sweeper and mid-game spinner, and he also checks a common threat in Dream World which had currently wrecked through my two pokemon of choice at the moment, Thundurus. Next I needed a strong specially defensive Pokemon to tank hits from the likes of the strongest special attakers, namely Latios, Tornadus, and the omnipresent Genesect. At first I attempted Blissey to form SkarmBliss, however I soon found out that getting 6-0'd by a SubCM Chandelure isn't ideal, and Genesect just U-turn's out of Blissey anyways. I tried Jirachi next, as it provided Wish support to my team, but still it fell to both Genesect and Jirachi. So, last but not least, I finally found a Pokemon to do what I needed: Heatran. In Dream World being able to allow one Pokemon to sleep versus Breloom is important, so if a Breloom switches into my Hippowdon, I switch to Skarm, proceeding to double switch into Heatran to tank the spore. Heatran doesn't care about Sleep as much as most Pokemon because he can utilize Protect to basically take a turn away from the sleep making it much less deadly. At this point I looked at the team and found that Stealth Rock and Spikes were direly important to the team's success in battle, meaning I couldn't just let them get spun away easily. Due to this I added the best Spinblocker: Jellicent. Jellicent also checks Reuniclus with Taunt + Shadow Ball who otherwise ploughes my team to da' streets. At this point in time I had 4 Pokemon weak to Breloom's STAB's, and since in Dream World Breloom has access to Technician and is very common, I needed a hard counter. Keldeo could also potentionally sweep me as well. So who else than everyone's favorite mushroom? Being able to Spore, spread status, and hard counter Breloom it was a perfect Elmer's bottle to my team. This was how my team was created, and here's a further look into it. Tl;dr this is my teambuilding process and a partial analysis of the Dream World metagame.
Please note, at the beginning of my ladder run I used standard sand as I was new to the metagame, but now this is my permanent team, and is probably my best DW team. It's beaten many of the top players on the ladder, namely the RS (insertbadwordshere) kids, and Taylor.
Under the Microscope..
Impish | Sand Stream | Male
248 HP | 252 Def | 8 Spd
Stealth Rock | Earthquake | Slack Off | Ice Fang
I must be fond of Hippowdon or something, as I've used him for my Standard OU RMT as well. In all honesty, I don't see why he sees basically no use in the Dream World metagame. This mammoth is able to take on a myriad of physical threats, and together with Skarmory my physically-defensive core is practically unbreakable. Excadrill is one of the few physical attackers without a super-effective that can beat Skarmory somewhat reliably, and Hippowdon beats Excadrill easily once his Balloon is broken. Hippowdon is also my secondary counter to Blaziken who is the most powerful Physical sweeper in the game, and in sun can 2HKO the whole metagame with a Swords Dance under its belt. From experience I've found Dream World is more of a physically-oriented metagame, with the best sweepers being physical such as Breloom, Blaziken, Garchomp, and Excadrill. Special attackers are typically used early-game to open up for these sweepers late-game, such as Chandelure trapping Gliscor for a Garchomp/Excadrill sweep. This means Hippowdon's place on my team is priceless, as he can check several physical threats, and is severely unprepared for. The most important thing Hippowdon does for my team is set up Stealth Rock, which is arguably the most important move in the game. With one of the sturdiest ghosts in the game on my team alongside him, this ensures they'll be up the whole match, causing residual damage aiding the Excadrill sweep late-game. This also aids weather wars, but especially cripples Volcarona, HP Ground versions of which are a particular nuisance to my team. Next is Earthquake, which is extremely useful versus annoying Pokemon such as Jirachi, Genesect switch-ins, etc. The third move Hippowdon has in his arsenal is what makes him the best Sand inducer for this team: Slack Off. Reliable recovery = WINNING. But seriously, he tanks hits so well, can heal them off, and is just so god-status. And last but not least is Ice Fang. I typically use Roar, however this team already has two phazers and I fought that it was never necessary. Ice Fang is crucial to hit Salamence, Garchomp and Dragonite which Roar cannot. It also lures in Breloom and Ice Fangs for decent damage, which is cool too. He's one of two Male Pokemon on my team because he's a man.
Adamant | Sand Rush | Male
252 Atk | 4 Def | 252 Spd
Swords Dance | Earthquake | Rock Slide | Rapid Spin
Excadrill is probably the second-best physical sweeper in Dream World, with the first being Garchomp. However, unlike Garchomp, Excadrill can play a vital defensive role on my team as a Rapid Spinner, and a very reliable one too as he can switch into most of the common Stealth Rock'rs without fear, such as Tyranitar, and Rapid Spin freely as it fears an Earthquake. For my item choice I chose an Air Balloon for a couple of reasons. First of all, it acts as a pseudo-Garchomp and Excadrill check with the balloon intact, and you can never have enough of those as they have such a high usage in the tier. Secondly, Air Balloon makes Excadrill avoid Spikes damage which is the only hazard really hurting Excadrill as he as a 4x resistance to Stealth Rock. I chose an Adamant nature, simply for more power. I see absolutely zero point in using Jolly.. unless you want to speed tie with other Jolly Excadrill, and that's probably the most pointless thing ever. Excadrill's STAB Earthquake completely decimates shiz, and versus Sun teams I attempt to spam this as much as possible so that Ninetales cannot switch in. Rock Slide is my coverage move of choice for this team, as its needed to revenge kill and hit Volcarona and Thundurus who would become massive nuisances otherwise. Volcarona doesn't see much usage in the Dream World metagame, thankfully, however I still want to have a way to revenge it just in case. Thundurus is very common, especially in rain teams, so it can just NP and spam Thunder. On most teams I prefer Frustration or Return, and I would really wish to use it here, however the massive Thundurus weakness coercions me to do otherwise. Finally we have Rapid Spin, spinning away hazards that could harm my team in any way. I never have to spin away Toxic Spikes though, since one of Amoonguss' main assets is to absorb them. He's the second male on my team because he's da man.
Calm | Flash Fire | Female
248 HP | 252 SDef | 8 Spd
Toxic | Protect | Roar | Lava Plume
248 HP | 252 SDef | 8 Spd
Toxic | Protect | Roar | Lava Plume
Heatran is a key member of this team, as he is one of two Pokemon that status impeding my opponent's Pokemon from causing harm to my own team. Heatran is my Sun "counter" per se, as Sun teams in Dream World typically run Chandelure as their trapper instead of Dugtrio, meaning he's a much more viable counter for these teams. For the EV spread, instead of the typical spread listed on the Smogon site, I learned that Scizor isn't as common in DW due to Genesect's prevalence in the tier, so the Speed EV's are not necessary. The HP EV's listed give Heatran a Leftovers +1 number with a max specially defensive spread for obvious reasons like tanking Draco Meteors and the likes, and finally the 8 speed EV's are for speed creeping other Pokemon in his speed tier, and other Heatran as well. Heatran's special niche in the DW Metagame is the ability to hard-counter Genesect, which is one of the most used Pokemon. The best Genesect can do is Thunderbolt Heatran which does 25-30% maximum, and you just say "Hey metal bug boi, sup, eat my Lava Plume!!!!!!!!!111111111oneonone". The moveset is different than most Defensive Heatran, but it's the most effective for my team. First of all we have Toxic which is for poisoning stuff. The main stuff that Toxic is poisoning is Lati@s, Tyranitar, Politoed, Ninetales, and Breloom switch-ins. Next we have Protect, which scouts Choice'd Pokemon, gets rid of Sleep faster as mentioned earlier, and gives you a free 6.66% health like a devil. Next is Roar, and Heatran is a very good phazer. This gets rid of annoying set-up Sweepers like RainRachi who tries to annoy me, and it also racks up entry hazard damage as well. All of you have felt the power of phazing. Lastly there is Lava Plume, I chose this over Flamethrower because the burn is very nice on most switch-in's, except PO is rigged because Scald always burns and this retarded move never does and they have the same % number. Wtf.
Impish | Sturdy | Female
248 HP | 236 Def | 24 Spd
Spikes| Brave Bird | Whirlwind | Roost
Just like in Standard OU, Skarmory is one of the best Physical walls and one of the best Spiker's there is. He is my go-to bird for most Dragons, as he just uses them as set-up bait. The item chosen was Shed Shell, because Chandelure is big and fat and dumb and fat and dumb. And fat. I believe he's broken, but that's beside the point since the tier leaders have strongly voiced their opinion against banning anything. All ranting aside, Skarmory is my physical wall. Since he's a Physical wall, Impish is the obvious nature. The EV's given minimize Stealth Rock damage, making his HP an odd number, allow him to outspeed Max-Speed Wobbuffet (I ran into quite a few actually, like a triple trapper team, don't laugh) and then the rest is put into Defense to take random physical barrages better. Brave Bird is a necessity so that Skarmory doesn't become Taunt-bait, and also because its needed to hit strong fighters in the tier like ballsy Blaziken thinking I'm set-up bait, or a Bulking up Conkeldurr, but most importantly BRELOOM. The powerhouse. Whirlwind on Skarmory gives my team the most reliable phazing, as he phazes much better than Heatran as he takes on Physical attackers better than Heatran takes on Special Attackers due to his lack of recovery, and it racks up Hazards damage giving Excadrill an easier time late-game. Spikes on this set are pretty obvious on this set, as it weakens my opponent's team and they're almost never spun away because of Jellicent. Even Excadrill has a hard time spinning against it because I can double switch into my own Excadrill and threaten it with Earthquake. Last but not least we have Roost, a necessity on any defensive Pokemon for reliable recovery and an ability to stallmoar. What is there to say really, Skarmory is Skarmory. Utillize him well.
Bold | Water Absorb | Female
252 HP | 216 Def | 40 SDef
Scald | Recover | Shadow Ball | Taunt
Jellicent's place on this team is priceless, as it spinblocks, and is my "stallbreaker" versus opposing stall teams. The EV spread allows for tanking physical hits as well as possible, and the Specially Defensive investment allows Pringles' Special Defense to be just slightly higher than its Defensve so that Genesect gets the Attack boost, making its Thunderbolt do minimal damage. This specially defensive investment also means that it takes Volt Switches from Rotom-W much better. You may have noticed that I do not utilize Will-O-Wisp, and instead use Shadow Ball, which may seem strange, however it is necessary for this team. Not only does Jellicent lure in Lati@s and hit them hard with a Shadow Ball, but with Taunt + Shadow Ball it effectively checks Reuniclus who is problematic. Will-O-Wisp isn't very necessary because I have two other means of status, not to mention the fact that Scald has like a 100% burn rate. Shadow Ball is also cool versus other Jellicent, shutting them down as well. You've already heard this in the RMT tons of times before, but every wall needs reliable recovery so I have Recover. A cool thing about this team is that it can absorb many common types of attacks. Heatran absorbs Fire attacks, Skarmory takes Grounds attacks, Jellicent can tank Water and Fighting-type ones, and Hippowdon is immune to Electric-type attacks. Shadow Ball also lets Jellicent actually hit Keldeo after he's Taunt'd, and can beat him 1v1 if no HP Electric.
Bold | Regenerator | Female
248 HP | 216 Def | 40 SDef | 4 Spd
Spore | Giga Drain | Hidden Power Ice | Stun Spore
Amoonguss completes my team, and to be quite honest he's the glue to the team, and also the MVP. He's massively underrated, yet he's very "anti-meta". First of all, he can Spore. I mean seriously now, that's a broken move. Secondly he beats two major threats to my team, namely Keldeo and Breloom. Yarly he's a boss. Thirdly he can use Stun Spore. Now I've never ran into an opposing Stun Sporing Amoonguss which makes mine very unexpected (well not now I guess, but lol). The best thing to do is to go for the immediate Spore and decapitate a Pokemon on the opposing team the whole match, and next you Stun Spore. Assuming it hits, you just crippled two Pokemon, and the second one is commonly and Blaziken or Excadrill feeling free to switch-in and they get paralyzed. What really makes Amoonguss great though is Regenerator, his Dream World ability, allowing him to get a free 1/3 HP back when he switches out. I abuse that a lot, and if you try my team you should too. Hidden Power Ice finishes the coverage, allowing me to hit Breloom and Dragons. I've been meaning to test out HP Fire, but never got around to it and I just stuck with HP Ice. Giga Drain is the STAB move of choice, giving me more recovery and just hitting bulky waters and stuff. The EV spread allows me to speed creep 0 speed Amoonguss and Reuniclus and proceed to spore them, and it also gives Amoonguss a hazards number. Also, its spread prevents a +1 Keldeo from ever 2HKO'ing him with HP Ice. Shed Shell is used so I don't become Chandelure bait.
I hoped you enjoyed my RMT and partial DW analysis. I hope it wasn't too much of a tl;dr, though it probably was, but I just want to advertise how much fun DW is and how it is a legitimate tier. The "OP'd" threats lose much effectiveness with team preview when you know what to prepare for, and DW deserves more activity than what it has recieved. Here's my importable if you wish to test out the Dream World metagame, and I hope you enjoyed my RMT. This will be my last RMT for a while as I probably won't post another one until Smogon Tour is over. Thank you.
Hippowdon (M) @ Leftovers
Trait: Sand Stream
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 Spd
Impish Nature (+Def, -SAtk)
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Slack Off
- Roar
Trait: Sand Stream
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 Spd
Impish Nature (+Def, -SAtk)
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Slack Off
- Roar
Excadrill (F) @ Air Balloon
Trait: Sand Rush
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spd
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Swords Dance
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- Rapid Spin
Trait: Sand Rush
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spd
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Swords Dance
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- Rapid Spin
Heatran (F) @ Leftovers
Trait: Flash Fire
EVs: 248 HP / 252 SDef / 8 Spd
Calm Nature (+SDef, -Atk)
- Toxic
- Protect
- Roar
- Lava Plume
Trait: Flash Fire
EVs: 248 HP / 252 SDef / 8 Spd
Calm Nature (+SDef, -Atk)
- Toxic
- Protect
- Roar
- Lava Plume
Skarmory (F) @ Shed Shell
Trait: Sturdy
EVs: 248 HP / 236 Def / 24 Spd
Impish Nature (+Def, -SAtk)
- Spikes
- Brave Bird
- Whirlwind
- Roost
Trait: Sturdy
EVs: 248 HP / 236 Def / 24 Spd
Impish Nature (+Def, -SAtk)
- Spikes
- Brave Bird
- Whirlwind
- Roost
Jellicent (M) @ Leftovers
Trait: Water Absorb
EVs: 252 HP / 216 Def / 40 SDef
Bold Nature (+Def, -Atk)
- Scald
- Recover
- Shadow Ball
- Taunt
Trait: Water Absorb
EVs: 252 HP / 216 Def / 40 SDef
Bold Nature (+Def, -Atk)
- Scald
- Recover
- Shadow Ball
- Taunt
Amoonguss (F) @ Shed Shell
Trait: Regenerator
EVs: 248 HP / 216 Def / 40 SDef / 4 Spd
Bold Nature (+Def, -Atk)
- Spore
- Giga Drain
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Stun Spore
Trait: Regenerator
EVs: 248 HP / 216 Def / 40 SDef / 4 Spd
Bold Nature (+Def, -Atk)
- Spore
- Giga Drain
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Stun Spore