Battle Stadium Singles blog #5 — Sand + Gyarados mode revisited, feat. Gloom (S4)

Don't be fooled by the rock that she's got — she's still Jenny from the block.

For March, the format got its first taste of the shake-ups coming later in the year in the form of DLC with the inclusion of things like G-Max Lapras, Blastoise, the Alola starters, and slightly less impactful things like Ninetales-A, Unaware Clefable, and Prankster Meowstic.

  With people likely experimenting with all this newfangled stuff, what better time to fire up some crisp hyper offense all ins to see how everything holds up to it, I thought. So, what I ended up climing to triple digits with was a re-imagining of an earlier Excadrill sand build with Gyarados mode.

   And just to make things a bit more interesting, I included "meme Corsola" itself — Eviolite Gloom — in order to have a fun way to answer things like Conkeldurr, Snorlax, TR mode reverse sweepers like Dracovish, Umbreon, and non-offense boosting or Weakness Policy reliant physical threats such as Dracozolt, not to mention the bane of hyper offense, Ditto.

Rental Code: 0000 0003 N5DJ 7N

Pokepaste: https://pokepast.es/13d4470ae391fab3

1) Team overview:

Tyranitar

As far as Stealth Rock options with sand go, Tyranitar feels most consistent for me. This is largely due to its Dark typing preventing things like Prankster Taunt, Thunder Wave, Trick/Switcheroo, and Memento from Grimmsnarl/Whimsicott all ins, but having potent special-based attacks also occasionally helps the main Dynamax modes, Excadrill and Gyarados, break through Ferrothorn and Corviknight—neither of which Sandaconda, Gigalith (whose main niche is Gravity + Explosion anyway), or Hippowdon can provide.

   Taunt would obviously be ideal here, especially for high ladder, but cutting one of the offensive moves is a hard sell when Tyranitar can sometimes just turn 1 flinch hax an Aegislash or a fat Rotom-W Volt Switching out, for example. And regardless, Gyarados does carry Taunt (albeit as much for Max Guard as for jamming up defensive play), and Excadrill has Brick Break, both of which are situational answers to and can undo some of the more popular set-up strategies.

   Tyranitar also benefits from being respected as an offensive threat (Weakness Policy) even from a lead position, which can translate to switching in those defensive checks like Corviknight to be statused and abused.

Excadrill

When I first ran sand back in December-January, I was operating under the grave misapprehension that Adamant was somehow worth it over Jolly on non-Weakness Policy Excadrill. This is clearly not the case now, nor was it then. For one, having a Spd tie in the mirror makes bringing Excadrill mode slightly more justifiable given how ubiquitous Excadrill is. But the main reason for going Jolly, as I see it, has to do with Togekiss (whose variants, admittedly, now seem to be moving more and more away from max Spd in favor of additional bulk), who will position itself so as to come in to Max Guard stall out the final sand turn and thus outspeed Adamant Excadrill after it.

   Apart from its place as a pseudo-Moxie Max Knuckle enabler, Brick Break made Excadrill a viable, even expendable follow-up (Tyranitar-Excadrill-Gyarados) to Tyranitar against Screens Grimmsnarl even before the arrival of Gmax-Lapras to BSS this season as another major screens abuser. While Tyranitar does indeed trade poorly against lead Gmax-Lapras, resulting in Lapras getting a 2-for-1 trade out of Tyranitar-Excadrill in order to get both Stealth Rock up and Aurora Veil down so as to render moot a non-Dynamax sweeper like Cloyster or even Blastoise waiting in the wings, so long as it is bruised enough, Gyarados/Dragapult should Dynamax snowball out of control with relative ease with the opponent's Dynamax now exhausted.

Dragapult

Both of the primary Dynamax options on the team are physical, so having a special attacker with good type coverage is not the worst thing ever. Infiltrator and a real Spd stat of 282 outside Dynamax also mean that Dragapult can not only finish off damaged Max Airstream sweepers such as Gyarados, Togekiss, or Dracozolt, but also pull off revenge kills against many threats like Dynamax Dragapult or Hydreigon, bruised 252 Spd sand Excadrill, and +2 +252 Spd Cloyster/Blastoise.

Gyarados

Wacan Berry means that bringing Gyarados into possible Choice Scarf Wash/Mow-Rotom games is easier to justify, and also streamlines decision-making against Conkeldurr in the team select screen: Conkeldurr is always EV'd to live Max Airstream in Dynamax form, which means it can revenge it with Max Lightning. This also applies to the occasional Assault Vest Snorlax, too. Additionally, clicking a greedy Max Geyser as the opening move in hopes of breaking through a bruised Type: Null in the back is made easier overall thanks to actually surving an otherwise lethal Max Lightning from Durant that might get lured in on a non-Max Airstream opener from Gyarados thanks to its superior speed tier, as well.

   Forgoing Lum Berry means blind leading against Hippowdon openers is a call that has to be made since switching in on Yawn is no longer free. Umbreon and other fat Yawn users able to withstand a Moxie-boosted atttack, such as Snorlax, are also a problem.

Gloom

Putting aside the fact that Gloom is clearly outclassed in most situations by stuff like Ferrothorn and Corsola, running anything this passive and susceptible to Substitute and Taunt abuse is a risk in a fast format. On this team this decision is justified by having an otherwise bursty-enough offensive line up, and by some of the choices made in the rest of the team, most notably dropping the Dracozolt and Toxapex-bopping Earthquake for Taunt on Gyarados, and having the option of doubling up on Stealth Rock attrition against stall with a Toxic-immune Sleep Powder and Leech Seed user in Gloom itself.

   The EVs are stolen from panpikkle, the legendary mono-poison madman of USUM Battle Spot. Apart from checking the stuff mentioned in the introduction, Gloom also barely lives and Strength Saps through unboosted Max Steelspike from Durant (possibly having double ghost in the back makes clicking Max Knuckle for it a gamble) and Weakness Policy Excadrill.

   In general, though, it bears remembering that outside hard stall, Gloom does not strictly speaking counter much, but really only acts as a check that needs full health to do its thing against an admittedly limited selection of targets. Fortunately, though, this is at least somewhat remedied by Gloom's status as a bit of a shitmon, which means that it can be easy for opponents to overlook, or, indeed, disrespect in the team select screen.

Aegislash

Aegislash lives virtually every unboosted Max move, which in real terms translates to almost always trading 1-for-1 against opposing offensive options. This includes most Max Flare Togekiss, meaning not taking offensive advantage of Aegislash's Steel-type in the match up where it would be most relevant is not as big a deal as it would seem, so long as its Dynamax turns line up properly for +2 Shadow Ball into +2 Shadow Sneak, that is. Like Modest Scarf Fire Blast Dragapult, King's Shield Aegislash is also notable for being a free lead against most Darmanitan openers, further improving Tyranitar's viability as a lead against opponents seeking to play around the aforementioned.

   As an interesting aside, since Aegislash occupies the same crowded Spd tier as Lapras, base 60, arguably the most contested Spd tier in the format currently, some Weakness Policy Gmax-Lapras sets are actually running 29 Spd IV specifically to underspeed uninvested Aegislash. Running 71 real Spd stat here is to ensure underspeeding min Spd Dracovish Trick Room mode as well as targeting other Aegislash, but still be natively faster than Hippowdon and the Conkeldurr that seek to outspeed it.

2) Usage notes:

"The struggle alone pleases us, not the victory." ~ Blaise Pascal

Hyper offense is a format-wide team-building check that, without appropriate answers, will inevitably snowball out of control. It is thus hardly worth mentioning that this is naturally most often the case in low ladder, where most players reside, making teams like this easy to un-dumpster oneself with. Where things do get interesting, though, is when faced with opponents whose squads consist of similarly potent, relatively streamlined threats, or, who actually bring enough defensive options to check, hard wall, or set up a reverse sweep speed control win conditon. This is when team preview game, the thing that makes BSS best-of-one stand out from other formats, and what makes me keep playing this format, comes alive.

   Now, I would not presume to claim that everything you will find below represents some kind of objective view of the true nature of things or anything, far from it, but rather simply exists as a distillation of my thoughts and observations of how I held a 70% win rate at a decent level of play with this team (all but the 6-7 first of this season's Master Ball placement games were played with this):

   Also, and I may well be burying the lead here a bit, the slightly revamped team selection section below should probably be the most informative part of this entire read. This is because, although I haven't broken double digit ranks yet this generation, I do think I have a decent enough grasp of some of the more common types of team-building patterns at the upper echelons of the console ladder outside of the mere customary monthly perusal of nouthuca.com, given some of the ratings of the people I have been hitting the past two seasons:

   As a final curiosity worth sharing, some of the more galaxy brain plays I encountered this time around, and would very much like to try to build upon going forward, were the Scarf Pelipper that switched into an unboosted Max Steelspike and Hydro Pump 1HKO'd Excadrill the following turn, a surprise dual screens Inteleon lead, as well as the situational but sweet-as-heck Hail / Substitute / Protect / Freeze Dry Eiscue as a physical Dynamax staller and Gyarados answer (it worked; I got destroyed).

2.1 — Usual team compositions

Tyranitar-Excadrill/Gyarados-Dragapult/Aegislash

Tyranitar-Excadrill-Gyarados

Tyranitar-Gloom-Gyarados/Excadrill/Dragapult

Aegislash-Tyranitar-

2.2 — Most brought, by rate/member (descending)

I think what's important to note here is that being too shy with bringing Excadrill is very much a thing: for one, Corviknight, whose Iron Defense sets do a number on it without a serious prior bruising, feels like it is opting more and more for greedier sets (Bulk Up, Taunt), relying on its defensive image to keep opponents honest. And even one of the premier Dynamax-checking Yawn-users, Snorlax, now has at least four different things it can be doing (Yawn/Protect, Assault Vest, Curse-Gmax, fast Dynamax), meaning it's worth spending some extra time in the team select screen trying to figure out what's what when it comes to Excadrill checks.

1. Tyranitar

2. Gyarados

3. Excadrill

4. Gloom

5. Dragapult

6. Aegislash

2.3 — VS Team Select Screen

Screens or Tailwind Offense

Grimmsnarl or other Light Clay Dual Screens as leads or as follow ups to damage leads à la Trick Room offense builds. Alternatively, dedicated cripple leads like Tailwind/Memento/Switcheroo Whimsicott (Sash, Eject Button, Flame Orb) or Will-o-Wisp/Thunder Wave Dragapult/Mimikyu.Win conditions consist of Dragon Dancers (Haxorus is a dead giveaway), Cloyster, Max Airstream mode etc.

Tyranitar-Excadrill-Gyarados/Aegislash/Dragapult

Defensive Whimsicott is one of the better answers to Gyarados, but on teams that go out of their way to telegraph Screens or speed control offense, Gyarados mode is a relatively safe bet, so long as it doesn't hit Thunder Wave Grimmsnarl, thanks to its Dynamax bulk and access to Max Guard. Needless to say, against any kind of Grimmsnarl play, Excadrill is mandatory.

Trick Room (Hyper) Offense

Curse Mimikyu typically paired with Rhyperior, Snorlax, Dracovish, or even something like Primarina/Lapras. Likely partners include Sash/Dynamax leading a sweeper like Cloyster, Durant, Sash Counter Cinderace, Special attacker Arcanine etc. to trade 1-for-1 at a minimum so that Trick Room Mimikyu and its partner can clean up. Other partners may consist of Ferrothorn, Dracozolt, Gyarados and/or Togekiss mode.

Tyranitar-Excadrill-Aegislash/Gloom/Gyarados

Aegislash in the back is consistent against unboosted threats, with Gloom also being viable against Trick Room mode Rhyperior, Snorlax, or Dracovish. If Gyarados is brought as a follow up to Tyranitar speed control, it can opt to get the KO on the opposing (suicide) lead without Dynamaxing so it can Taunt the negative priority click of Trick Room from the Mimikyu and sweep from there.

Balanced Momentum Offense

Excadrill, Mimikyu, Togekiss, Corviknight, Dragapult, Gyarados, Rotom, Yawn Hippowdon/Snorlax. At first glance, almost everything is potentially an offensive threat, likely with a solid defensive backbone in something like Hippowdon or Snorlax. With multiple sweepers, something might also have an unexpected support set like Sash Rock Tomb Excadrill or Yawn or Trick (Specs) Togekiss.

Tyranitar-Gyarados-Aegislash/Dragapult

Dragapult-Aegislash-Gyarados

Gyarados-Dragapult-

Excadrill, Hippowdon, and Aegislash are all iffy lead match ups for Tyranitar. This means getting Stealth Rock down is not always possible, which, in turn, makes any kind of opposing Sash play in the back all the more frightening, potentially making for some strange team compositions, likely involving both Aegislash and Dragapult.

Dedicated Defense (stall-mode)

Corviknight, Toxapex, Quagsire, Gastrodon, Umbreon, Corsola, Ditto etc.

Tyranitar-Gloom-Gyarados/Dragapult

Barring a novel form of trap mode like Whirlpool Cursola or Gothitelle, this is Gloom's best matchup bar none. Usually these games go as follows: Tyranitar and Gloom try to status and attrition stuff for Dragapult or Taunt Gyarados to eventually Dynamax sweep.

3) In Conclusion:

The next post will be a short one about my experience in the upcoming 2020 revamp of PGL's Flash Clash: Extreme Speed! Single Battles!!, a 1v1 blitz format with the added twist of having no team preview component. Other than that, for April's post-proper, I'm itching to finally fire up some Silvally, Eiscue, or even a selection of the galaxy brain stuff above.

- Tox

SW-0021-9848-8999