RMT : I've just reached Master Ball 3 for the first time and I thought it was time to go online to try to improve myself and fish for new ideas, or just new insights I might not have considered.
Here's the link to my team : https://pokepast.es/65bda33787577110
Team Idea
My team was basicaly built around Mawile to try to make a team works despite the popularity of mons she isn't good against (mainly fire types). I'm somewhat satisfied with that team, but I feel like there's still room for improvement.
It started as a classic hardtrickroom team, but I slowly moved away from it, for a more non-meta comp, while still using strong mons.
The idea for running mawile in a Tailwind team came from pairing her up with Aerodactyl. it's just a great pair, I feel like.
Team description :
Starting with the star of the show :
Mawile :
The center piece of this team, and it's the one mon I don't want to remove. Also I feel like she's doing her job. She just works
Mawile 's build is classic, and honestly, I feel like the only choice you can make is wether you want to run Iron head or swords dance. Although I'm always taking ideas I might not have thought about.
The only unusual thing is that 16 in speed E.V. To be honest, at first I built her with 32 Hp (and 2 in SpDef). But in exchange for losing some bulk, I made mawile slightly faster. And there's one reason only : outspeeding Garchomp under tailwind.
I quickly realised that building a mawile team, I had to find answers to two of the most popular mons in the meta : CharizardY and Garchomp. I also thought I had to run trickroom (the tailwind idea came later). At first I thought about running just mawile in a rain team. (I tried peliper at first). But it just felt underwhelming. I couldn't win the weather war reliably. also trying to juggle into setting up trick room, then switching to rain to fight against Charizard Y, only for charizard to switch out on the next turn, to come back and set the sun back up... It just doesn't work.
So instead, I turned to the better charizard counter : rock types. And Here comes the second mon.
The one thing I'm not sure is wether I should keep intimidate or run hypercutter. Getting debuffed too many time has been a problem. And intimidate has backfired. But at the same time, I feel like Intimidate probably did a lot more than I give it credit.
Aerodactyl :
Aerodactyl is just a surprisingly great teammate for mawile : kills charizard, resist or is immune to mawile's two weaknesses. Can support Mawile with Wide Guard. It's just an incredible mon, aside from the fact that you don't usualy want to run mawile tailwind. So I worked in the lab, and I figured out mawile and that's when I figured out that, despite the fact she's so slow, so you could EV Mawile just fast enough to play rough garchomp and one shot it (unless choice scarfed). And aerodactyle is just good in that meta, despite the fact that people learned how to deal with it.
I say surpringly because it seems nobody is running that pair.
Focus sash exist to make sure it still has time to do something if the opponent opens with whimsicott + charizard and try to one shot aero first with tailwind.
I still needed an answer to steeltypes, for the third type that could wall Mega Mawile. More specificaly to archaludon at the times.
Sneasler :
I changed my sneasler's build several time tbh. Only microadjustments. I used to run taunt. I replaced it with protect, and this was the best change I made. At the end, I even replaced fakeout with upperhand (although since I changed it I haven't used it effectively once, so for all intent and purpose, the team that made it to MB3 could still be running fakeout instead for the same result). I thought about replacing unburden with poison touch to kill whimsicott through Sash. But I felt like it wasn't necessary. + it might prevent some BS wins through Dire claw's random sleep or paralysis by poisoning some mons. Yeah sometimes, Unburden feels like overkill. I still enjoy it. Sometimes it allows sneasler to still outspeed most mons despite the enemy's tailroom.
Sneasler's just good. He covers my weakness to steel I currently have (fortunately corviknight isn't popular in doubles). Direclaw deals with floette and sylveon + can cheat a win through random status.
After that I needed more special attackers. Also my two main damage dealer were both weak to ground. Sure Aerodactyl is immune to it. But Aero is a bit paper thin, and it's not like his damage could kill a garchomp alone. And while the mawile tailwind trick could deal with garchomp, I was basicaly dead if he somehow managed to kill mawile before I could kill my opponent's garchomp. Besides, mawile wasn't an answer to other, less common ground types. I also wanted a weather, just as a way to cancel my opponent's weather. Sun is the worst one for Mawile, so that one was out. I tried rain, but I was disapointed. So It was between Snow and sand.
To be honest, sand makes more sense with my team. But I think my weakness to water types would become way too big If I had to run Ttar or another sand setter. But I'd be curious to see if a mawile sand team is possible.
So for now I settled for snow. Aurora veil is nice for my team that's not that bulky. Even though there's literaly no other benefits (aside from hard targetting garchomp). It was between ninetails and frostlass.
So 4th party member
Ninetales-Alola :
Ninetails is amazing. But I can't figure out how I want to play her. I thought about running frostlass instead for a secondary mega. Maybe it's the right play. But the problem is that you really can't play both of them at the same time. Both Mawile and Frostlass need to mega evolve to be useful. Meanwhile, ninetails was the easier/safe pick.
I Still don't know what items I want on her. I ran her with Clay for aurora veil. I ran her with choice scarf, but setting up aurora veil became too annoying. Now I'm running her with never melt ice for extra damage as the extra turns on the veil felt unnecessary.
Aside from blizzard (obviously) and aurora veil, Freeze dry is a must. My team's struggling against a little against water types. And Freeze dry gives me one more option. Moonblast gives coverage for ninetails when Ice doesn't work.
Sinistcha :
I feel like Sinistcha is a classic as a mawile's partner for trickroom. Setup trick room, then rage powder. It usualy allows you to earn enough time to setup swords dance. Matcha gotcha takes care of that pesky water blind spot.
Despite being this late into the presentation, this was the first mon I paired mawile with.
But honestly? It feels like more often than not, I just prefer running the tailwind part of the team. It doesn't help that trickroom only benefits mawile. (and a little Garchomp, because, spoilers, it's bulky garchomp, not the classic garchomp you see in every other team).
The 4th skill, life dew, doesn't feel that good most of the time. I just think my team's too frail for it, or i'm just bad at exploiting it. Maybe I just don't switch my team efficiently enough?
Garchomp
I will say, I love dragontail garchomp. Stop setups, stop trickrooms. And the people underestimate how bulky it is. But because he's weaker, he's really weak to intimidates, to the point where he stops doing any damage. If you let the opponent's incineroar bully him. (part of why I started running upperhand at the end of my climb on sneasler tbh, even though it's probably not good).
I started running stomping Tantrum because 1 - I used to run spikes, which was useless, and 2-Having earthquake as your only ground option while your partner's protect was off cooldown just felt bad. To the point where i'm starting to think I should switch earthquake for something else.
I thought about running Garchomp as a secondary mega, as he's good against mons where mawile is bad, and he's already slow so making him slower isn't a big deal. Unlike frostlass it doesn't feel bad bringing him at the same time as Mawile. But leftovers have been quite effective. I'm not sure it's a good idea.
Also earthquake is overrated. But i'm not sure it's worth swapping out for a better option such as rock slide (especialy since it's already on aerodactyl). Protect on the other hand is a must.
Even If I wanted to replace garchomp, I still think this team needs a ground type. Ground targets both steel and fire, two of mawile's weaknesses. Plus another option against steel is very much needed as sneasler isn't enough on its own.
My counters :
I've struggled against several things, but there are at least three things I can think of :
Hard trick rooms (and specificaly girafarig who has been a real pain)
Milotic (specificaly)
Offmeta comp.
For offmeta comps, this might just be me lacking experience. For one of my more recent loss, a team like Wyrdeer skillswap with a full defiant team (including milotic) was just brutal. I've also noticed these players tend to be quite good at predicting what i'm going to do. Since I've built my team with the big 6 in mind, and the most popular mons on ladders, I'm starting to struggle whenever I start facing unusual mons, like Reuniclus, Hydrapple, (for exemple)... In general I just don't know what to do when we break the usual patterns.
But I also feel like I could improve my team . For milotic, in theory I don't have a water weakness. But I have nothing good against it either. Sinischai is usualy my best option. If milotic starts setting up with coil and spamming hypnosis, it can be very rough for this team. Freezedry isn't good enough against her.
There might also be other weaknesses I'm not thinking of.
P.S. I apologize if my English isn't that good. It's not my first language.