#572 Minccino

Bucsfan818 · (This post was last modified: Apr 14, 2019, 09:08 AM by Bucsfan818.)

So ummm, Hi everyone. Its been over 2 years since I've been on these forums and over 2 years since I played Pokemon competitively. I recently started playing again on Pokemon Showdown and I've been having fun with it. It's a little hard knocking the rust off, but still fun lol. So let me start out by saying that even though this community was always more VGC focused, I always played singles. Why? Because I sucked at VGC lol. And I always loved the lower tiers in Smogon because of the variety of different pokemon that were viable. So this will be a write up of an NU Hazard Stacking Team that I've been using recently and that I've had some success with. So, without further ado, lets get into the team building process.

The Core

So when I was first getting back into things, the first thing I noticed was there were multiple Mega Pokemon in NU now. Last time I played it was only Mega Audino in the tier. So I immediately wanted to use a Mega on the team and build around that. And the Mega I chose? Mega Glalie! I knew I wanted to use Mega Glalie right away, but at this time in the process I didn't know the type of team I wanted to build around it. So I kind of pieced it together as I went along and added more members to the squad.

Glalie @ Glalitite
Ability: Ice Body
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Spikes
- Double-Edge
- Earthquake
- Explosion

So this is just a standard Mega Glalie set in NU. Mega Glalie is one of the best wallbreakers in the tier and the pressure it puts on opponents to switch out makes it a reliable Spikes user as well. The ability to pressure and eliminate opposing Xatu, which is a common staple to a lot of NU teams, is very important since Xatu's Magic Bounce ability prevents hazards from being placed on your opponents side of the field. Plus Glalie's Ice + Ground coverage is amazing for dealing with a lot of the tier. The most noticeable thing that Glalie cant deal with in NU is bulky Water types... And there are a lot of them in the tier. That is where the 2nd member comes in...

The amount of pressure these 2 pokemon put on opponents force a lot of switches, which is where the wheels started spinning in my head to try to turn this into a hazard stacking team. So for that, I needed more of them.

The Hazard Support

The main hazard I needed to add was, of course, Stealth Rock. There are a lot of Rockers I thought about using in this spot. Steelix was the first pokemon that came to mind, but my core is already really weak to Fighting. Because of the fighting weakness I thought about Palossand instead, which could have worked well for many reasons. However I ended up settling for the most unique Rocker in the tier...

Now on the other end of the spectrum of Hazard Support, I needed to add a pokemon that could keep Hazards off of my side of the field with all the switching that I would be doing. And for that, I added another unique pokemon in the tier...

So, at this point I have 2 of the strongest wall breakers in the tier on the team. Hazards that can be stacked freely. And 2 walls that can wear down opposing pokemon by inflicting status, Rocky Helmet chip damage, and phasing out opponents into unfavorable match-ups which forces more switches and extra damage from hazards... But I had nothing to take advantage of that at this point. So the last 2 spots on my team went to pokemon who could take advantage.

The Cleanup Crew

I knew what i wanted at this point, but I wasn't sure exactly what to add. One thing I always do, or did, when team building was I always tried to have a 2nd core of types that synergized well together. Either Fire-Water-Grass, Dragon-Fairy-Steel, or Dark-Fighting-Psychic. So I wanted to complete 1 of those typing cores with the last 2 spots. I also needed a pokemon that can set up and sweep late game or punch holes through a team early/mid game. I also wanted priority as well to pick off pokemon weakened by the rest of the team. I also needed a Z move user as well because why not, right? And I eventually found a teammate that fit even better with this team than I even realized when I first added it...

So, 5 of the 6 members are on the team. I also have 2/3 of the Fire-Water-Grass core I am aiming to add at this point. I still needed an offensive pokemon. I have wall breakers, I have set up, I have priority. One thing I felt I was missing was a Choice Scarf user. A scarfed Fire type was what I needed and I knew right away which pokemon it would be...

Another thing about adding these 2 Pokemon to the team is they both resist the main weakness of the Core of this team, Fighting types.

Team Summary

I love this team. The synergy that each Pokemon has with each other works really well. Whether its the Hazards set by Druddigon and Glalie weakening Pokemon for Decidueye and Delphox to sweep easier late game, Delphox and Glalie eliminating Grass types that check Decidueye and Heliolisk while the ladder 2 return the favor by eliminating Water types that check Glalie and Delphox, Druddigon and Decidueye manipulating match-ups by phasing/trapping Pokemon. It all gels very well together... but it isn't perfect. There are a few things that stood out to me as problems for this team to deal with.

Incineroar - Arguably the most used Pokemon in NU, Assault Vest Incineroar is a problem for this team. None of my offensive Pokemon deal with it very well. The way I have beaten Incineroar with this team is weakening it with Rocky Helmet chip and Hazards to the point where its in range of the other Pokemon to clean it up.

Defog - I have a way to stop Rapid Spinners from removing my hazards, but nothing to stop Defog. No Defiant users like Passimian or Braviary to punish a team for Defogging away my hazards.

Toxic Spikes - Toxic Spikes are the one hazard this team doesn't appreciate. Blastoise can spin them away, but having one of my main walls crippled with Toxic is annoying. A Poison type to absorb Toxic Spikes when entering the field would be beneficial.

Knock Off - This is a problem for 2 reasons. First reason is I simply don't have it on the team. Second reason is I have no Dark type resist on the team so there is nothing to stop my opponents from spamming it.

Fairy Types - I Don't have any way to hit Fairy types Super Effectively. Just relying on chip damage and wall breaking to deal with them. Luckily, there aren't many Fairy types in the tier. Mega Audino, Whimsicott, and Comfey are the only 3 you will see regularly on the ladder and Delphox walls 2 of them.

Pokemon Showdown Replays

Below I will put some battles for everyone to watch of me using this team. Joeypoppems is my Username.

I hope anyone who read all of this enjoyed it. I know competitively speaking this is mostly a VGC community, but if anybody like this I will keep making them with various different teams Smile

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