Gen 8 SS UU - These Things Take Time

[Liz Angeles]

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Introduction

SS UU is one of my favourite tiers ever, and the tier that got me into smogon/tournament play. I only really started playing during the last couple of months of current gen though, and when uupl came around I basically had no way to prove I was any good at this tier, outside of a half decent swiss run where I wasn't really troubled in the games I won. Regardless I was incredibly frustrated when I went undrafted because I felt I was good enough to be playing and I was incredibly motivated to play and build this tier due to not really being invested in sv, so my focus shifted to cleaning up my builder and building new and consistent teams to be ready for uufpl. I think this is easily the best team I built during that period and probably in general, as well as being my favourite team to use. I basically started with the idea that I wanted to use thundurus. I really didn't like this mon during cg, but one of my main goals was improving as a builder and becoming more comfortable with different pokemon. The main problem thundurus has in this tier is it's speed tier is kind of middling, being slower than a lot of the other mid speed tier mons in the meta such as nihilego and keldeo and being massively threatened by them. The other problem with thundurus is it really struggles to fit all the moves it wants, and this is something that came up while testing this team. Regardless of this, the major strength of thundurus is its ability to exploit passive play with volt switch and consistently keep up momentum vs the vast majority of teams. Pivot moves and maintaining momentum are incredibly important in ss uu and that makes thundurus incredibly valuable, even if it can be incredibly difficult to build around. The rest of the team was built around completing the volt turn core and making sure I had as many ways as possible to keep up momentum, while also having a solid enough defensive core to take on the metagame.

In Depth

joyride (Thundurus-Therian) (M) @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Volt Absorb
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Volt Switch
- Psychic
- Knock Off
- Grass Knot

I spoke a lot about thundurus earlier but it has a couple of important functions on this team beyond generating momentum. Notably, because this team has no hazard removal it's incredibly important thundurus can heavily threaten spikes teams, as it's the only real way for this team to grab momentum vs skarmory. While this team can still function with hazards up, due to having 3 boots mons and a skarmory, it's still important to keep spikes off as much as possible to preserve health on nihilego and diggersby and not be overly weak to knock off. Originally thundurus had focus blast over knock off, but skarm + dhelmise was way too difficult to break and being able to knock dhelm just improved the consistency of the team. The other three moves are basically necessities, you need psychic for amoonguss and you need gknot for grounds, while volt switch is the main draw of this mon.


diamond song (Nihilego) @ Black Sludge
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 36 HP / 44 Def / 176 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Sludge Bomb
- Power Gem
- Knock Off

Nihilego was the first mon I wanted to pair with thund, largely because it's the best rocker in the tier in terms of consistently keeping rocks up, which is important for racking up more chip damage while you pivot around the opponent. The evs are to maximise recovery from black sludge and gain a speed boost after a ko, with the remaining evs dumped in defense. In addition to this, nihilego is unique in its ability to generate offensive pressure while also checking some important mons like hydreigon and togekiss. It provides invaluable role compression here that allows this team to function.


takemeouttonight (Diggersby) (F) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Huge Power
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Body Slam
- Earthquake
- U-turn
- Fire Punch

At this point when I was building there were a couple of different directions I could go, but I felt that locking in on a ground type was best and diggersby felt kind of obvious as an inclusion. On structures like this I normally favour offensive grounds, which normally narrows down my options to zygarde, diggersby, and mamoswine. I felt mamoswine didn't make much sense on this structure due to a need for speed control and the other two pairing better with nihilego. Diggersby's main advantage over zygarde was it's access to u turn, which kind of obviously fits better on a team based around grabbing momentum. Originally I had knock off over fire punch but once I changed thundurus to be knock off I felt triple knock was unnecessary and fire punch gave me a way to beat down skarm. The drop from jolly diggersby to adamant doesn't miss much and the extra power is nice for skarm, although running jolly with thunder punch for gyara is also an option.


the lonely (Skarmory) @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Sturdy
EVs: 160 HP / 252 Def / 96 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Spikes
- Body Press
- Iron Defense
- Roost
At this point I needed a scizor check, and I went with skarm largely because I was in my mence hater era, but I do think skarm is a better fit here anyway. Other scizor checks didn't really fit here because I needed a ground immunity. My main problem with mence at the time I built this was basically just how weak to knock off it is, which meant that if you face a rocker that can keep rocks up vs mence your team becomes really weak to a lot of the stuff it's meant to check. Originally when I built this I had defog skarm because I was looking into other defog options due to my mence hatred but I felt that hazard removal wasn't really necessary for this team, and spikes is one of the main upsides of skarm, particularly on a more offensive team like this one, which prevents it from being too passive. Another key thing skarm does for this team is not only completely shut down excadrill but also chip it down any time it tries to spin, which is important as it can be kind of annoying to deal with otherwise.


home song (Zarude) @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Leaf Guard
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Power Whip
- Darkest Lariat
- U-turn
- Jungle Healing
I had the main core of the team finished by now but there were a few important holes to fill. Most teams in this tier run a grass type to help deal with zygardes thousand arrows. I also feel it's very important to have a dark type for polteageist and because I've been traumatised by double dance reuniclus, but this is less mandatory and more of a personal preference. Zarude wasn't just chosen for it's compression of the two types I wanted though, it synergised really nicely with the rest of the team. Zarude is kind of unique in the tier in that it's an offensive mon that's normally chosen for its defensive capabilities and its ability to generate momentum for its teammates, which makes it incredibly valuable on this type of volt turn bo. Additionally jungle healing allowing it to absorb status from zygarde, slowking, and rotom wash, which is especially important for the latter two as this team doesn't really switch in on them well.


whiskey sour (Slowking) @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpA
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Scald
- Future Sight
- Teleport
- Slack Off
My main concern with this slot was having an initial prim switch in and keldeo counter. Slowking provided that while also being probably the best defensive pivot in the tier. I really like pairing slowking with skarm as well because it's one of the best switch ins to defensive celesteela in the tier, and steela is normally very difficult for skarm teams to deal with due to being spikes immune and naturally matching up well into skarm and nihilego. Slowking can also switch in on some of the bulky slow set up mons like reuni and glowbro and teleport into something that can threaten them offensively.

Threat List
This team is pretty weak to dragon dance mons in general, skarm can take a lot of them on depending on set but taunt gyara in particular is a major threat which is pretty common.
This team really doesn't like facing the regen grasses, which is kind of the nature of zarude teams, amoonguss is a lot more manageable although you likely have to pick a sack to spore.
Sub prim is incredibly good vs this team, every other set is pretty easily manageable.

Replays
UUWC 2023 Pools, vs Glue https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8uu-705751
UUFPL 2023 Week 4, vs Leru https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8uu-688173

Conclusion
For me this team is kind of just a reminder of how far I've come in the past few months, I'm at a point now where most people know me as a good player in this tier and that's honestly really cool. Shoutouts pokemonisfun, never would've gotten into uu without you and you had some minor input on this team. hariyana grande avarice UUFPL was some of the most fun I've had with this game even if I went negative (lmao), thanks for drafting me and creating such a fun team environment. Especially thanks to frankjosh for supporting me so much, I wouldn't have played sspl without you and even if you weren't available for tests much you were great to bounce ideas off and you helped stop me from sabotaging myself. dex Baloor sspl was my first real tour and I had a lot of fun with it, you kinda trusted me to just do my own thing and I'll always appreciate that, I'll also never forget the hype coming out of that bfm game. Queen of Bean you helped a lot by testing with me before and during uufpl even though you hate this tier, thanks bestie. Sylvi goat, you're always willing to listen to me ramble about this tier even though you don't play it and have easily been the most helpful person to talk to for my mental.

I think the tier is in a pretty good place at the moment, there are definitely match up issues but I feel like they're often kind of exaggerated, most teams have a couple of glaring weaknesses but I feel it's very rare that you load into a preview loss. I do think reuni prim is a bit too strong for what it is but I think we're long past the point of prim ever being banned and that's fine, I'm not sure if it's really broken anyway so much as it's annoying. Building can be incredibly frustrating at times but I still think there's room for a lot of creativity, even if it's much easier to go with certain proven structures a lot of the time.

Import

Hide

takemeouttonight (Diggersby) (F) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Huge Power
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Body Slam
- Earthquake
- U-turn
- Fire Punch

diamond song (Nihilego) @ Black Sludge
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 36 HP / 44 Def / 176 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Sludge Bomb
- Power Gem
- Knock Off

whiskey sour (Slowking) @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpA
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Scald
- Future Sight
- Teleport
- Slack Off

joyride (Thundurus-Therian) (M) @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Volt Absorb
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Volt Switch
- Psychic
- Knock Off
- Grass Knot

home song (Zarude) @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Leaf Guard
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Power Whip
- Darkest Lariat
- U-turn
- Jungle Healing

the lonely (Skarmory) @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Sturdy
EVs: 160 HP / 252 Def / 96 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Spikes
- Body Press
- Iron Defense
- Roost

 

[Baloor]

good team! i was really happy how well sspl worked out for you. frankjosh and bfm really vouched for you. you definitely have a lot of potential as a player and I hope to see you doing well in more tours soon!