Battle Spot Mawile team!

[jroxas]

After playing a lot more and learning the ropes, I decided it was time to abandon Starmie (*sniff*) and put together an actual competitive team. I wanted to build around a defined strategy instead of just assembling synergistic good stuff (I love combo and control and hate midrange in Magic and Hearthstone, for example). Mawile + Trick Room Porygon2 looked right down my alley, so I decided to build from there. I refrained from completely building around Trick Room though, since that seems too one-dimensional and easily countered.

I started this team a bit over a month ago. I've tweaked the moves and items a bunch since then, but the 'mons themselves have mostly stayed intact. The only exception is Azumarill, which was initially Rocky Helmet Gyarados.

I occasionally break into the lower 1700s on cart BSS with this team, but usually hover around low-mid 1600s.

Mawile @ Mawilite
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Play Rough
- Sucker Punch
- Swords Dance
- Knock Off

This seems to be the standard Mawile template, and it’s mostly been working well.

I’ve thought about running Fire Fang over Knock Off since I otherwise don’t have any fire moves on the team, but Knock Off has been amazing so often that I’m reluctant to make the switch. Fire Fang would help a lot against Scizor, Ferrothorn, and other Mawiles; I haven’t necessarily had trouble beating them, but they’ve occasionally forced awkward decisions.

Porygon2 @ Eviolite
Ability: Download
EVs: 244 HP / 12 Def / 252 SpA
Quiet Nature
- Trick Room
- Shadow Ball
- Ice Beam
- Tri Attack

I have a feeling I too often bring Porygon2 along when I shouldn’t. The biggest problem has been situations in which Porygon2 is walled but not killed soon enough for others to utilize Trick Room and switching something in is very risky. This often happens with Calm Mind Sylveon / Suicune and SpDef Talonflame. (It doesn’t help that Suicune’s Scalds seem to have a 100% burn rate against Mawile.)

One thing that's been great is that many seem to assume it's a defensive Porygon2 and go through the effort of swapping and applying Toxic. Meanwhile I make a Trick Room and start zapping things.

Azumarill @ Choice Band
Ability: Huge Power
EVs: 228 HP / 252 Atk / 12 Def / 12 SpD / 4 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Aqua Jet
- Waterfall
- Play Rough
- Superpower

Choice Band Azumarill is strong under normal circumstances and Trick Room makes it even more threatening. It also happens to be good against the Fire and Ground stuff that Mawile dislikes!

I chose Superpower over Knock Off because Mawile already has it and the coverage against Steel is useful. If Mawile runs Fire Fang instead, Knock Off goes here.

Assault Vest was Azumarill's item for a long time and that was good too; I’m still not 100% sure Choice Band is better. Can’t complain about Play Rough having OHKO on Sylveon and Aqua Jet having greater revenge killing power, though.

Thundurus @ Life Orb
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Thunder Wave
- Thunderbolt
- Hidden Power Ice
- Taunt

I next looked for a Taunt user to bring against the various nonsense you run into on BSS. Offsensive Thundurus fits the bill well - it blanks Earthquakes, OHKOs some common ground-types, and Prankster-TWave plays nicely with Mawile when I can’t get/keep a Trick Room up. He’s become my most common lead.

Hippowdon is an awkward matchup that comes up frequently. Thundurus gets the 2HKO with HP Ice against physically defensive variants and 3HKO on specially defensive, but both cases usually mean Yawn triggers and subsequently Thundurus gets rekt. I’m usually fine with the trade since Hippowdon’s an obstacle for much of the rest of my team, but this situation is common and annoying enough that I’m considering running Grass Knot over Taunt.

Garchomp @ Focus Sash
Ability: Rough Skin
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Earthquake
- Outrage
- Swords Dance
- Rock Tomb

I don’t use Garchomp often; just when I think Earthquake will be necessary (mainly Mega Manectric) or if I think I’ll need to answer something with Swords Dance + Sash trigger -> hurt things. The usual Sash -> Outrage against dragons is nice too, but pretty much the entire team is already good against dragons so that’s not an important contribution.

Every so often I use Trick Room to make Garchomp move first against Greninja or Mega Blaziken/Manectric/Gengar and it’s hilarious.

I don’t run into Breloom often, but my solutions to it are poor so I’ve been thinking about using Lum Berry or replacing Swords Dance with Sleep Talk. A bulky Rocky Helmet build to swap into Kangaskhan or Talonflame is attractive too.

Gengar @ Gengarite
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Destiny Bond
- Will-O-Wisp
- Hex
- Sludge Bomb

Sometimes their entire team is good against my Plan A consisting of Mawile + Porygon2. In those cases I just bring Gengar and some combination of Thundurus, Azumarill, and Garchomp and hope to ride their raw power to victory. I’ll also sometimes bring Gengar along with Mawile despite “wasting” its item slot to burn Kangaskhan or blank predicted High Jump Kicks aimed at Porygon2.

If I feel like changing things up, I’ll instead run a standard Mega Charizard X or Mega Kangaskhan here to make their decision-making at team select a bit more difficult, but I haven’t found anything to be truly useful more often than Gengar.

tl;dr:

• I'm happy-ish with this team right now and it's performing fairly well, but there are some minor issues and I'm sure there are things I'm missing or good tweaks to be made.
• Fire Fang vs. Knock Off on Mawile? Without Fire Fang, no direct fire damage on the whole team.
• How good is Grass Knot on Thundurus?
• Which Garchomp variant fits my team best?
• Breloom is a bit tough to deal with.
• Might there be a better backup mega-evolution than Gengar? Well, I guess it doesn't even strictly need to be a mega-evolution, just something for when Mawile isn't good.
• I'm not married to any specific team members other than Mawile + a Trick Room user and am open to any changes that would help.

 

[Anirav]

Alright your team looks really good but I have a few suggestions.
I feel you should use a sitrus berry bulky thundurus given in the strategy dex since you don't really have a defensive presence on your team except for porygon2.

Also I feel you definitely want fire fang on mawile instead of knock because scizor and ferrothorn actually seem like huge problems for your team.

If you opt for that then replace superpower with knock off on azu. I don't think grass knot is necessary for your team. Why is hippo giving you a problem? You can just use taunt on the first turn against it and it will be forced to switch.

If breloom is a problem, you can opt for lum berry garchomp or maybe you could replace SD with sleep talk.

Mega gengar is really good and it forms one of the best cores in bss with azu so I don't recommend removing it at all.

Anyways, hope you do well with your team! Be sure to visit the battle spot room on pokemon showdown if you need any more help.

 

[Omastar68]

Looks good. The Pokes here are pretty common ones overall, nothing to raise any eyebrows, tho I think some sets could be changed.

First off, move 8 EVs from HP to Def and SpD(4 each.) This lowers HP one point to raise each defense one point. Alternatively move the 4 Spe to Def and possibly run Brave and 0 Spe IVs(You're trying to be slow right? And min Spe outspeeds min Spe Aegi. You can even run Brave and 15-19 Spe IVs to be as fast as you can while still outspeeding min Spe Aegi, if you don't think that's too much of a headache to breed.) I vote Fire Fang>Knock Off. I'm an advocate of a fire type move on every team.

Not an error, but I think that last sentence on P2's summary is funny. "Make" a Trick Room lol. And it don't have an electric move, so "zapping" stuff is gonna be hard to do:)

With just two attacks and no Nasty Plot should Thundy even be going offensive? A defensive set would be better I think. The standard sets with Sitrus work, but what I like is Bold 252 HP/ 236 Def/ 20 SpD T-Wave/ HP Ice/ Volt Switch/ Swagger with Lefties. EVs are Mosley just physical bulk, with the SpD greatly reducing/eliminating the chances of some 2HKOs if I'm remembering right(I think standard-well one of the standard sets-Aegi's Shadow Ball is one thing.)

Lum Berry Chomp like aniravjain mentioned sounds wonderful. Other than that maybe CB with Dual Chop could work for Breloom. I'm not really recommending it, but have you tried Mega Chomp on this team? It's not slow enough to be crazy fast with TR, but you could run a neutral Spe nature and no EVs to be bulky, and outspeed a lot in TR. Might not be very good but it'd be interesting.

Mega Gengar is just really good-albeit a tad boring-so I'd keep it. Fits well with your team and everything(doesn't bunch weaknesses,) so I'm not sure why you even are thinking about ditching it. Has it failed you in the past?

 

[cant say]

The team actually looks fine as-is, I think it might just be lingering teething problems as you get used to the meta. For example you say that you have trouble keeping Trick Room active against teams with Pokemon like Suicune, but isn't that what you have Mega Gengar / Thundurus for? Trick Room P2 + M-Maw + Azumarill is a fantastic core, but obviously doesn't work against everything. You have the tools to beat the things that annoy your TR set up but it reads as though that's not how you're using them. ~1700 points on cart isn't anything to scoff at, but I've seen teams that are set up almost exactly like this that break 2000, so just keep at it and I'm sure you'll get better.

Mawile should definitely be Brave if using it with a Trick Room set up, so if you can breed that then great. Fire Fang is cool, one thing it really helps with that you didn't mention is Skarmory, which you don't really have anything for (sans Thundurus).

If you aren't gonna use Sitrus Berry Thundurus then why not use Belly Drum Azumarill? If you do, use it over Waterfall. Aqua Jet / Play Rough / Superpower is great offensively.

Grass Knot is really cool on Thundurus so use that over Taunt. I usually use Focus Blast in the fourth slot on LO Thund but that doesn't benefit you so much apart from Ferrothorn and Kangaskhan. I do think that a much bulkier Thundurus would be good on this team but I guess you'd have to find one first.

Perish Trapping Gengar would help against your Breloom problem somewhat, as 'Loom is a common lead you can usually anti-lead it with Protect/Substitute and Perish Song. As for Breloom popping up mid-late game, well you're gonna have to rely on revenge killing it I'm afraid. You could also make Garchomp with a Choice Band and Dual Chop which usually OHKOes Breloom through its Sash but obviously can't switch in on Spore.

 

[NOVED]

Your team looks pretty good, and fairly standard as far as Mawile teams go.

As others have said, I think a bulkier variant of Thundurus would be a lot better. I feel your team is looking pretty Talonflame weak right now. Nothing can really afford to switch in on wisp and beat most talon variants except Thund, and using offensive Thund as your talon check can be iffy against more offensive talons.

A set like this is really good in the meta atm:

Thundurus @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Prankster
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Bold Nature
- Thunderbolt
- Hidden Power [Ice] / Focus Blast
- Thunder Wave
- Nasty Plot

You could also change the EVs up a bit if you want more SpDef. And Nasty Plot could be changed to something else like Taunt or coverage, but I think bulky NP thund is a really good wallbreaker.

And for Garchomp, I actually feel like a Scarf set would be best for the team. Your team looks a bit Thundurus weak atm, and Scarf Garchomp can revenge kill Thundurus consistently fairly well, even when rocks are up. You can also find room to fit Sleep Talk on a Scarf set to deal with Spore a tad better.

You could also consider running a bulky grass type to beat breloom super reliably. Out of all the mons I would probably replace Mega Gengar. A bulky Serperior deals with Breloom really well and also offers Para support for your Mawile. It's also another very solid Kanga check. A set like this works nicely:

Serperior @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Contrary
Level: 50
EVs: 116 HP / 220 Def / 172 Spe
Timid Nature
- Leaf Storm
- Reflect
- Synthesis
- Glare

I do think Mega Gengar offers some nice backup utility though, but if you find that you really really hate Brelooms, this Serperior is worth trying.

 

[jroxas]

The consensus is definitely to switch to the tanky Sitrus Berry Thundurus, so I'll try it out. How do you usually play with it? I've been mostly using the offensive Thundurus as my lead, hoping to KO something (especially Landorus-T, Garchomp, and Hippowdon, which people seem to leave in against Thundurus) and paralyze whatever comes next. Sometimes I save it for later if I anticipate needing to Taunt something. Also, I've played against a fair number of Thundurus wearing Rocky Helmets; is that just to be extra strong against Talonflame and probably overkill? In any case, I've picked up a Bold Thundurus from Giveaways and I'll give it a spin. Bulky Nasty Plot is appealing, but how effective is it without any speed investment?

I'll switch to Fire Fang on Mawile and Knock Off on Azumarill. I didn't go with Brave / 0 IV Spe in order to outspeed paralyzed stuff in the absence of Trick Room, and it's mostly worked out well in practice.

Scarf Garhomp with Sleep Talk sounds good! It can come in against Spore and still do work against fast stuff like Salamence, Gengar, Manectric, and Greninja the way the Sash variant can.

Serperior is an idea I briefly considered, but I don't have access to a Contrary one. What's the best way to get ahold of stuff like that or Speed Boost Blaziken other than hoping to find them in Giveaways?

I'll stick with Gengar for the time being. I was mostly questioning its presence because it's the only one I included just because it's good, rather than for specific reasons that fit my team. But as you all pointed out, I guess it does fit the team.

Thanks for the help, everyone! I'll make these tweaks and see how things go.

 

[NOVED]

The consensus is definitely to switch to the tanky Sitrus Berry Thundurus, so I'll try it out. How do you usually play with it? I've been mostly using the offensive Thundurus as my lead, hoping to KO something (especially Landorus-T, Garchomp, and Hippowdon, which people seem to leave in against Thundurus) and paralyze whatever comes next. Sometimes I save it for later if I anticipate needing to Taunt something. Also, I've played against a fair number of Thundurus wearing Rocky Helmets; is that just to be extra strong against Talonflame and probably overkill? In any case, I've picked up a Bold Thundurus from Giveaways and I'll give it a spin. Bulky Nasty Plot is appealing, but how effective is it without any speed investment?

I'll switch to Fire Fang on Mawile and Knock Off on Azumarill. I didn't go with Brave / 0 IV Spe in order to outspeed paralyzed stuff in the absence of Trick Room, and it's mostly worked out well in practice.

Scarf Garhomp with Sleep Talk sounds good! It can come in against Spore and still do work against fast stuff like Salamence, Gengar, Manectric, and Greninja the way the Sash variant can.

Serperior is an idea I briefly considered, but I don't have access to a Contrary one. What's the best way to get ahold of stuff like that or Speed Boost Blaziken other than hoping to find them in Giveaways?

I'll stick with Gengar for the time being. I was mostly questioning its presence because it's the only one I included just because it's good, rather than for specific reasons that fit my team. But as you all pointed out, I guess it does fit the team.

Thanks for the help, everyone! I'll make these tweaks and see how things go.

With Bulky Thund, it's used mostly as a check to guys like Talonflame and Salamence, and it can use it's bulk to spread paralysis a bit more safely. With Nasty Plot, it's best used against defensive threats like Cresselia, Suicune, SpDef Talon. You don't want to be using NP against more offensive teams, especially when they have things like potential Scarf Garchomps lurking. Rocky Helmet is also a reasonable item on it, it helps vs Kanga mostly but also gets good chip damage on the usual mons it likes to check.

As for looking for things like Contrary Serp or Speed Boost Blaziken, you can try looking for them here: http://www.smogon.com/forums/thread...item-requests-etc-go-here-no-hacking.3540352/ or the Wifi room on PS is sometimes helpful. The battle spot room might also have people who can help, normally the BS room isnt used for trades but some people might be willing to help if you need something for a competitive team, since people there are more likely to have spitbacks of competitive mons.

 

[cant say]

Don't go with Knock Off on Azumarill. Knock Off isn't needed here like it is in LC, and you really need Superpower to hit Ferrothorn with otherwise he pretty much walls you (apart from Mawile's Fire Fang).

You could also use an offensive Serperior with Hidden Power Fire which shits on both Breloom and Ferrothorn, but can't be counted on to take a hit at all.