Guaranteed OHKO Team Report

Hey all, here's the team I used to go 8-2 to finish 5th place in this weekends Spear Pillar tournament. The team ended up performing far better than I expected and is a lot of fun to use, but I should warn you that it is REALLY not easy to use.

Team Export: https://pokepast.es/05a7ddb920ab6f06

Explanation for the team:

I knew I wanted to build around Skill Swap + Sheer Cold + No Guard. Sheer Cold is the best OHKO move because the only type immune is Ice, which is the least common. I started by picking my skill swap user. While I was looking at eviolite Stantler with intimidate or sap sipper, I decided I wanted this Pokemon to have mental herb to prevent a single taunt from stopping the entire strategy. The next best choice for me was Bronzong, as I wanted a Pokemon with Skill Swap, Hypnosis, and Trick Room. Bronzong is especially good because it's very bulky and resists Gholdengos Make it Rain, which is important. Protect was added for the Perish Mode and because Bronzong is very important to the core strategy, so I needed to keep it alive. Unless the EVs are for something specific, I aimed to maximize general bulk. Dark tera was chosen because I was worried about Kingambit, plus I thought being immune to Prankster could be valuable.

Next I needed to add my No Guard user - and there were only three options - Lycanroc Midnight, Golett, and Golurk. I started with Lycanroc and was messing around with Fling Kings Rock and Charm, but it just seemed so bad that I took it off the team without playing a game. Next I added Golett, as I figured this Pokemon didn't need to do damage. But then I compared Eviolite Golett to Golurk and realized it wasn't even bulkier, so I settled on Golurk. Golurk doesn't learn many useful moves, so I had to get creative. The only screen it learns is Reflect, but I figured this was actually decently useful so I added it and gave it light clay. Curse seemed good mostly to KO Golurk when it had done its job. Dynamic Punch seemed like the best option given confusion can swing battles, and then I realized that it could actually be good against Tyranitar, Kingambit, and tera steel Gholdengo. I gave Golurk enough attack investment to KO Kingambit, tera steel gholdengo, and Tyranitar with either regular dynamicpunch or tera fighting. I put the rest of the EVs into its special defense because I thought it was more important to get special bulk since Golurk could set Reflect.

Now I needed a Sheer Cold user, and looking through the options I knew I wanted something slow. Lapras seemed best - because Sheer Cold didn't work on Ice Types, I wanted a Pokemon with a way to beat ice types in an end game, and Lapras learns perish song. With its good natural bulk, low speed stat, and access to both perish song and sheer cold, Lapras was chosen. I gave it substitute to help keep it alive in situations where I could afford to set up a sub as well as to protect it from Amoonguss' spore, who I was really worried about at this point. I didn't want my opponent to be able to waste my trick room turns with fake out especially since the setup requires 2-3 turns at best, so I went with ghost tera. EVs are general bulk with a focus on special defense. Because I intended to skill swap away the ability I went with water absorb so Bronzong could functionally wall Pelipper and some other key threats. I initially had sitrus on lapras but thought Goth wanted it more so I changed it to leftovers, and it worked surprisingly well.

At this point it was obvious to me that a well played Amoonguss would beat my entire strategy, and I was also very worried about Kingambit as I require multiple turns of setup as well as currently having no dark resists. I almost gave up on the team because I couldn't see a way around this, but then I was looking at other skill swap users and found Clefable. I realized that with safety goggles and unaware, Clefable could serve as an answer to both Kingambit and Amoonguss, and with follow me protect my partners. Kingambit at present mostly run protect, swords dance, and two dark moves - so having a fairy type that resists dark and ignores all stat boosts with Unaware seemed really good. Against passive teams I could also use skill swap regardless of Amoonguss to pass no guard onto Lapras. Protect was chosen because it's generally useful and Moonblast was good because I wanted an attacking move both to break focus sashes and to prevent clefable from struggling if it got taunted. I went with tera water to help vs rain and gholdengo. Steel would work too.

Now I realized that with Perish Song Lapras, I could add Gothitelle to build out a partial perish mode. It wouldn't be nearly as threatening as a full perish team, but since I wanted another mode (especially a more obvious mode I could get opponents to focus on in game 1 so they'd miss the sheer cold strategy), it seemed like a good choice. This is basically just my Orlando Perish Gothitelle, I chose the same moves item and tera type due to comfort. Fake Out is really good on Perish Trap gothitelle, and just like clefable I didn't want taunt to make Goth useless. Sitrus is really important on Gothitelle because you need it to stay alive through the first three turns of Perish Song, and without Sitrus you can get KOd too quickly.

Lastly, my entire team was losing to Gholdengo, so I knew I needed an answer. I decided to use very fast, very offensive Incineroar. I wanted this Incineroar to KO even bulky Gholdengo, as well as to outspeed other Incineroar - this is because I wanted it to be able to be used with Bronzong in the lead, so I could go fake out and trick room before opposing Incineroar. Because I was running so much offense and speed (and because goggles and sitrus were already taken), I decided to use the Assault Vest item to help Incineroar stay alive. Incineroar tied both modes together and was really useful at taking KOs to take pressure off the other modes. Incineroar is also useful as ghost types are immune to shadow tag, so I wanted to pressure the opponent to switch them out or terastalize out of them. I chose throat chop over knock off to stop parting shot, which is one of the best ways to get out of shadow tag for non-ghost types. Grass tera was there for defense and to help vs Amoonguss.

This team performed really well but it was very, very difficult to pilot. If you use it I'd recommend just doing it to have fun and because pulling off the no guard sheer cold strategy feels great, but not if your number one goal is to get wins.