Great Tusk

Hey! it’s been a wild ride while being a part of the national dex community, and with the 5th year anniversary of natdex underway and thanksgiving coming to an end i think its a pretty special and good time to drop. with the departure of terastal and my skill level generally improving across the months id like to say ive made a team im confident and proud enough to rmt. without further ado lets get into the squad.

within the first few days or so of the tera ban, i noticed that offensive landorus, notably flyinium z, had massive potential. it’s able to snipe the tier’s most popular hazard control options which makes it an invaluable lure and interesting mon to build around.

being able to threaten hazard control makes hazardstack the obvious playstyle of choice. i opted for a more offensive variant for the ripening meta and picked gholdengo and hsam as partners

earlier renditions of the team had scarfed gholdengo, so i initially used a mixed ival set with heatran as a secondary steel

ival was dropped in favor for great tusk, and gholdengo was changed to hex and samurott to scarf instead

latias was added to patch up bad mu’s.

Welcome to the next era of Charizard Y! This Bulky offense team utilizes a max special bulk Yard in order to turn the table on would be checks and trade blow for blow with pretty much every special attacker in the tier, even the electric ones. This is enabled by the team's excellent hazard control and supporting cast. Each of which pose a unique threat in their own right and work together to annihilate the metagame through absurd damage dealers that seemingly cannot be brought down. A combination of Tusk, Kingambit and bulky Zard form a core that very little can break through quickly, all while each of those mons are exceptionally threatening on the offensive side making all attempts at doing so costly. With the added threat of SD Ogerpon-Cornerstone and the pivoting glue that Hatterene and Rotom provide, you have a remarkably powerful team with a strong matchup into all playstyles, especially stall.

In my journey to learn high level team building I’ve committed to a method that ensures each idea gets the exploration and testing it deserves. I start with a rough concept of a team, typically the core members with unoptimized movesets, spreads and supporting cast. I then create a new alt and ladder for 100 games, making any changes deemed necessary and honing the team over the course of those games until it emerges on the other side polished and prepared against the metagame. The win loss ratio and final Elo of each team will be recorded and compared against each other in order to both gauge the success of the individual team and also my skill and journey as a teambuilder. I believe that as these threads continue the progress in my building will be seen by how quickly the final form will be achieved. It is my goal to become one of the top team builders in this tier. In order to pursue that I will be repeating this teambuilding process with a new team concept every month next year. Be on the lookout for these threads at the end of each month to see how I get along.

I do not intend to compete myself, however I would love to make teams for competitors one day. Please let me know if you have any team idea suggestions or would like more info on any of the teams I have put together. I also greatly welcome any feedback on the teams and my process, the only way to get better is through practice and criticism and I invite both.