Other Metagames Gods and Kings (A MnM balanced offense team) (peaked 1400s)

Alright then, time for another RMT! This time it's for my MnM team, Gods and Kings. This balanced offense team focuses on using some uncommon threats to break and counter the meta while making an impression. Without further ado, let's introduce the team!


Tyranitar@Bannetite
Ability: Sand Stream -> Prankster
248HP/4 Atk/252 Def
Impish Nature
- Taunt
- Stone Edge
- Stealth Rock
- Thunder Wave

First up we have tyranitar. This is the essential suicide lead for the team, except it's not always used that way. Prankster allows Tyranitar to freely set up stealth rock, use thunder wave to cripple a sweeper or use taunt to counter other hazard setters and tanks that aren't gyaradosite or magic bouncers. Stone edge is for STAB damage that helps it take down threats it's crippled. Max defense investment is so that it can live for as long as possible.


Arceus-Ground@Earth Plate
Ability: Multitype
248HP/4 SpA/252 SpDef
Calm Nature
- Judgement
- Defog
- Recover
- Ice Beam

Next on the team is Arceus-Ground. I chose this pokemon for its excellent bulk, as well as its ability to check one of the biggest threats to both MnM and Ubers, Primal Groundon. Even with no defensive investment, Arceus can take any hit that Groundon can throw at it and return with a super effective judgement to OHKO. I chose to run defog and recover as its support moves since I needed hazard control and recover so that I can heal back the damage dealt from opposing pokemon and then take them on. Ice beam is for coverage against another threat to the metagame, literally any Pinsirite user (but mainly geneset/Zygarde). It also has its uses against other pokemon such as Pgroudon if it's low enough that it'll still kill, but also want to cover the switch into a flying type. I chose a specially defensive arceus because the team needed a spdef tank to work with the team, and this seemed like the best option.


Darmanitan@Lopunnite
Ability: Sheer Force -> Scrappy
252 Atk/4 SpDef/252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Flare Blitz
- Earthquake
- Super Power
- U-turn

Next up is our first sweeper, Darmanitan. With the lopunnite in hand, Darmanitan reaches a crazy 200 base attack on top of a crazy STAB typing, and insane 125 base speed and a strong movepool. Flare blitz is the main STAB of choice, out classing fire punch since it lacks enough damage, earthquake is coverage, Super Power for fighting type STAB after mega evolving, and U-turn is for momentum. To put his speed tier into perspective, base 115 speed pokemon speed tie with max speed non scarf marshadow. And his insane attack stat alone can help net KOs against the likes of venusaurite magearna, sablenite zapdos and many other commonly used pokemon in the meta.


Greninja@Diancite
Ability:Protean -> Magic Bounce
252 SpAtk/4 SpDef/252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Dark Pulse
- Ice Beam
- Hydro Pump
- Water Shuriken

Diancite greninja is a beast. This pokemon is run basically like scarf gren in OU, but with A LOT more power behind it. With the diancite it reaches a speed tier of 182, outspeeding EVERYTHING in the meta and dealing serious damage on a 163 base special attack. To put this into perspective here's a calc:
252 SpA Greninja Hydro Pump vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Tapu Koko: 244-288 (86.8 - 102.4%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
This set is for the most commonly run tapu koko, pidgeotite. It also outspeeds glalitite weavile and OHKOS with hydro pump. And diancite terrakion while OHKOing it with water shuriken in 3 hits. Honestly there is no reason to run ANY other diancite pokemon, greninja is just that amazing.


Magearna@Venusaurite
Ability: Soul Heart -> Thick Fat
248 HP/ 252 Def/ 8 SpAtk
Bold Nature
- Flash Cannon
- Fleur Cannon
- Volt Switch
- Pain Split/Heart Swap

Magearna is the defensive tank for the team, with thick fat to take on fire and ice type hits like they're nothing. I chose magearna because it has great synergy with the team, as it had a severe weakness to zygarde, genesect and golisopod, and needed one badly. Flash Cannon and Fleur Cannon are the duel stabs of choice, Volt Switch allows for momentum and the last slot is a bit of a toss up. Pain split is magearna's only form of recovery, while heart swap allows it to use fleur cannon, then cripple opposing special attacking pokemon. Heart Swap can also help stop set up, allowing you to steal their boosts. Both are good options though.


Zygarde@Pinsirite
Ability: Aura Break -> Aerilate
252 Atk/4 Spdef/252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Thousand Arrows
- Outrage
- Extreme Speed
Not a lot to say about this mon, except the fact that it's the best pinsirite user in the meta. This pokemon is already very well used throughout the current meta and is always feared, whether it's using this set or the altarianite variant. I chose this pokemon as the back up sweeper for the team, allowing for late game clean up.

Welp, that's the team, let me know what your thoughts are in the comments
 
Firstly, I'd suggest you change Tyranitar's set to something like this:
Tyranitar @ Bannetite
Ability: Sand Stream -> Prankster
248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 Def
Adamant Nature
- Pursuit
- Stone Edge
- Stealth Rock
- Thunder Wave

This allows it to really nuke a lot more with Stone Edge, while still providing the utility you need, and gaining the ability to Pursuit trap things like Latios, Zam and Mewtwo. Without any recovery, and with a typing with serious holes in a Pixilate filled format, Tyranitar doesnt form a defensive core with Arceus, and shouldn't be treated as such.

Your Arceus is solid. Darmanitan is a strong wallbreaker, but 125 speed isn't that high in this metagame. Don't try to use it as an offencebreaker, or you'll find yourself getting diancited. I'd also be tempted to run Rock Slide in place of EQ to beat Venusaurite Zapdos, who otherwise walls you.

Greninja needs to be changed. He's really bad in this metagame. Remember that Greninja is only an OU threat because of its amazing abilities - its really not great in a meta that doesn't let its abilities shine. I'd replace it with this:
Keldeo @ Diancite
Ability:Justified -> Magic Bounce
252 SpAtk / 4 Atk / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
- Sacred Sword
- Hydro Pump
- Stone Edge
- Filler. Maybe Sub, maybe some coverage.

This is a little slower than Greninja, but has 189 base SpA, Sacred Sword lets you slap Blissey silly, and Stone Edge is surprisingly powerful coverage coming off 132 Atk. You're also much more likely to eat a hit from a defensive mon than Greninja, with almost twice as much bulk.

Although Magearna is decent, your team is currently decimated by Ground attacks. I'd replace it with this:
Togekiss @ Venusaurite
Ability: Serene Grace -> Thick Fat
248 HP/ 252 Def/ 8 SpAtk
Bold Nature
- Wish
- Protect
- Toxic
- Dazzling Gleam

This allows you to get around your Ground weakness, while not being just killed by Thousand Arrows. Toxic/Gleam lets you handle even Sub Zygarde, and Wish lets you keep TTar in the game a little longer. If you want you could use Roost and some coverage instead. It's true that this doesnt really counter all Genesect Variants, but it should handle Pinsirite, which I believe is the most common variant.

I personally prefer Coil on ESpeed Zygarde, but if you like DD run with it.
 
252 hp/240+ def/16 spe is the ideal spread of Arceus-Ground unless you're looking to survive a particular special attack, allowing you to take two precipice blades reliably and outspeed maximum investment pdon, that way you can check it more reliably.

As TheTapDancer suggests Pursuit would be nice on ttar but idk what you find most useful.

Tapu Lele is usually the best diancite user - it has much better matchups vs Blissey and extremekillers such as Zygarde, both of which are common threats, and Psychic boosted by Psychic Terrain hits neutral targets eg pdon harder than Dark Pulse and more accurately than Hydro Pump. Haven't tried Keldeo personally, so idk how well that would work.

that Darmanitan set sounds quite bad. Terrakion, Landorus-T, Primal Groudon (Rock Polish or Double Dance variants), Archeops and Kartana are all similarly strong physical sweepers without Darmanitan's combination of being frail and slow (125 sounds great but mnm has very fast threats - outsped by diancite and lucarionite keldeo, absolite manaphy and several of the above)

If you find yourself weak to ground attacks, another option is latiasite magearna
 
Not liking this team. As suggested, the Arceus-Ground set is incorrect, it should be 252 HP / 240 Def / 16 Spe with a Bold Nature.

Magearna is being used for the wrong role. On this team, it should act as the team's special tank, which abuses Magearna's fantastic Special Defense stat and synergy with its typing, allowing it to take on threats much easier. Flash Cannon on Magearna is also sub-optimal, unless you are running a Cameruptite stallbreaker, in which case you are not. Magearna should always run Heart Swap / Pain Split / Volt Switch / Fleur Cannon unless you desperately need a cleric for the team, in which case it can utilize Heal Bell, but you lose the amazing pivot you can get from it. However, to make sure this rate has a bit more positivity to it, the defensive core is looking quite nice.

Tyranitar:
Tyranitar @ Lucarionite
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Pursuit
- Stealth Rock
- Stone Edge
- Earthquake

I personally like the idea of Tyranitar - its high bulk and valued access to Pursuit can help out a team immensely, and whilst there are limited opportunities to use it in MnM, it helps considerably with a team's Ghost weakness. That said, Tyranitar is easily hurt by coverage options, mainly due to the large amounts of Fighting-types and Fighting-type coverage in the tier. Earthquake is an absolute, ABSOLUTE must for Tyranitar - otherwise it is walled to hell and back by Magearna, which can just bounce back Stealth Rock, making Tyranitar deadweight. Pursuit helps with a team's common Ghost weakness, and often stops Pokemon such as Lunala from doing much to a team.

Groudon-Primal > Darmanitan
Groudon-Primal @ Red Orb
Ability: Desolate Land
EVs: 164 Atk / 192 SpD / 152 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Precipice Blades
- Stone Edge
- Rock Polish
- Swords Dance

EV spread seems daunting but the reasoning behind it is so that Groudon-Primal can live two Weather Balls from Red Orb Raikou and outspeed Diancite Naganadel after a Rock Polish. Groudon-Primal is a great cleaner that, after a wall such as Arceus-Ground has been removed, can happily sweep an opposing team. Its brilliant bulk and sky high 180 Attack stat can seriously dent teams - those relying on Pokemon such as Hippowdon to wall Groudon will be fairly surprised at how quickly an SD variant can break through them after they've switched in. The reasoning behind this switch is because Darmanitan is easily killed by priority attacks and doesn't have any significant way to boost its Attack other than Work Up, so this Pokemon should do you good.

Here was where I really struggled with trying to fix the team without altering it too much. Having severe problems with Kartana, I came up with this change instead, despite it personally being a bad set:

Golisopod > Greninja
Golisopod @ Blue Orb
Ability: Emergency Exit
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 Def
Adamant Nature
- Liquidation
- First Impression
- Drill Run
- Swords Dance / Aqua Jet

First Impression to me, at least, was mandatory on this set, as Kartana happily defeated the team otherwise if Zygarde didn't get the correct rolls. Golisopod gets Drill Run from the move tutors, which finally allows it to hit Red Orb users and makes it not a complete deadweight anymore. It also 1v1s Arceus-Ground, which is a huge pain for this team, and possibly the main reason I decided to choose it over something like Keldeo.

And a minor change - Pinsirite Zygarde I find is much better off with an Adamant Nature, helping it deal more damage to break through the things that could wall it such as Zapdos. It doesn't really gain much from being Jolly, as all it really needs to outspeed is Tapu Lele at +1 otherwise, and your EVs may be edited to avoid that. Hopefully this team should be a bit better now without overly changing the function of it.
 
Thanks to everyone for the suggestions! There are just a few things that I would like to point out however that will hopefully clear things up. First of all, everyone here seems to be suggesting that magearna is better off being used as a special tank because of it's typing, however, it is because of its typing that I chose it to be my defensive tank in the first place. Almost all of you said that the reason why greninja and darmanitan are bad pokemon is because of how stuffed full this metagame is of aerilate/pixilate users, but physdef magearna laughs at this kind of damage and shrugs it off with ease. I chose magearna to be the physdef tank because of how well it resisted those users, and with physdef, its actually 3 hit ko'd by +1 zygarde's thousand arrows, altarianite or pinsirite. TheTapDancer you thought my tyranitar was the other half of my defensive core to arceus, when that was not the case. I only put the defense investment to make it live as long as possible, as I stated in my rate. Tyranitar was simply a suicide anti-lead that was used for its great utility and bulk, not so much for its damage, which is what Chazm was going for. Also Chazm, while I'm not saying golisopod is a bad pokemon per say, but if I were to change my greninja out for golisopod, where would all my special damage output come from? While it isn't necessary, without a reliable why of dealing damage on the special side and no arceus ground, how would the team reliably deal with physical walls such as venusaurite zapdos? Also Chazm, I have never actually had problems with kartana before. between magerna, darmanitan and greninja it was handled quite well, since greninja would outspeed it quite easily and ohko, so it would need a scarf to outspeed, but then it would need to lock itself into something that wouldn't be able to beat down both magearna and arcues together, and if it was lucarionite, it would need to be jolly to outspeed darmanitan, which I know for a fact that most run adamant.

@IronedSandwhich you brought up the fact that diancite tapu lele is better than greninja. I have actually used diancite tapu lele before, and I agree, it's a great pokemon that can put out more damage than greninja. However, there is one reason that I actually don't use this pokemon, and that's because of diancite being used by 3 of the 4 swords of justice, keldeo, terrakion and coballion (terrakion in particular). All of these pokemon outspeed diancite tapu lele and ohko it, preventing tapu lele from doing anything, simply by being there. and while I have other ways of dealing with terrakion and coballion, keldeo still remains to be seen, unless zygarde can set up. Also another flaw I found with tapu lele is that it relies heavily on its psychic terrain to not only net kills but also take out common Espeed users. With this in mind, all you have to do is stall out its psychic terrain and then its not useful anymore.

That's just my opinion though, and the other points made are very solid and I'll definitely make those changes. I didn't want to sound like I'm being a nuisance, I would just like to have your opinions on why I may be wrong. Thanks again for the rates!

[EDIT] Also one more thing I wanted to point out is that I used taunt on my Tyranitar so as to help stop set up from opposing pokemon, such as RP Pdon. While pursuit is another great option that I'll definitely try, it doesn't seem as good against pokemon like that.
 
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