QR code page: Coming Soon, for now you can use the showdown exportable:

Reshiram @ Life Orb

Ability: Turboblaze

Level: 50

EVs: 60 HP / 196 Def / 92 SpA / 4 SpD / 156 Spe

Timid Nature

IVs: 0 Atk

– Protect

– Blue Flare

– Earth Power

– Tailwind

Groudon @ Figy Berry

Ability: Drought

EVs: 60 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def / 4 SpD / 188 Spe

Adamant Nature

– Protect

– Precipice Blades

– Fire Punch

– Rock Slide

Sableye @ Eject Button

Ability: Prankster

Level: 50

EVs: 252 HP / 36 Def / 220 SpD

Calm Nature

IVs: 0 Atk

– Taunt

– Gravity

– Sunny Day

– Quash

Incineroar @ Iapapa Berry

Ability: Intimidate

Level: 50

EVs: 236 HP / 60 Atk / 52 Def / 148 SpD / 12 Spe

Adamant Nature

– Knock Off

– Flare Blitz

– U-turn

– Fake Out

Celesteela @ Leftovers

Ability: Beast Boost

EVs: 252 HP / 36 Atk / 164 Def / 56 SpD

Relaxed Nature

– Protect

– Wide Guard

– Leech Seed

– Heavy Slam

Tapu Fini @ Aguav Berry

Ability: Misty Surge

EVs: 244 HP / 60 Def / 4 SpA / 196 SpD / 4 Spe

Modest Nature

IVs: 0 Atk

– Protect

– Moonblast

– Icy Wind

– Haze

This team was born from my desire to use Reshiram, one of my favorite restricted Pokémon this season.

After a couple of minutes in the damage calculator I realized how much damage Reshiram can deal, so I decided to abuse this fact to go on the opposite road: a defensive set, for more insight you should read my set analysis for this team here.

Groudon seemed the best restricted partner, mainly for the Drought ability that helps with weather match up but the main point is the substantial damage increase that the sun gives to Reshiram’s Fire type moves. At this point I wanted to have a reliable way to remove Xerneas’ boosts and another form of speed control, Tapu Fini was a great choice because it can learn Haze and Icy Wind, improving Yveltal and Xerneas match up at the same time. In a sun team Incineroar can’t be absent, it offers Intimidate and Fake Out support to help Reshiram set up Tailwind or gain momentum. Sableye was added just for fun but in testing it proved itself as a great pick for the team mostly for the Gravity support but with Prankster Sunny Day and immunity to opposing’s Fake Out, it made for an unconventional way to reduce opposing’s Kyogre damage output and increase Reshiram’s. Celesteela was another odd pick, I tried it after a bit of testing mainly because, as you probably already got, the team needs a strong Xerneas counter, Celesteela is a great pick because it helps Reshiram with Wide Guard support against opposing’s Groudon and Kyogre, it walls Xerneas and it pairs well with Groudon.

Common Leads:

This is my favorite lead: it helps a lot with ScarfOgre leads, even with Ludicolo, Sableye can easily use Sunny Day, take a full power Water Spout and switch out with Eject Button and make another partner switch in almost risk-free and at the same time significantly improve Reshiram’s damage output, against other leads you can use Gravity and make Blue Flare a 100% accuracy move, same thing with Groudon’s Precipice Blades once it enters the field once the Eject Buttons activates.

This leads helps most of the time setting up Tailwind and helps Reshiram with Intimidate support, especially against Groudon, once Tailwind is set up you can switch Incineroar out or use U-Turn for Groudon to pick up surprise KO with the sun up and Life Orb boosted Blue Flare.

This is my go-to lead against Xerneas, especially Xerneas-Smeargle leads, which force your opponent to a Fake Out into set up because of Misty Terrain Smeargle can’t spore and Follow Me becomes useless thanks to Precipice Blades, but a Fake Out into set up isn’t of great use since Tapu Fini can take comfortably a +2 Moonblast and Haze back or Xerneas has to take 2 Precipice Blades.

Strong Match Ups

Rain match ups are particularly favorable due to the varied ways to set up the sun and reduce opposing’s Kyogre damage output, opposing Tailwind based teams aren’t a problem at all due to Reshiram’s Tailwind and Tapu Fini’s Icy Wind.

Dusk Mane Necrozma is probably the easiest restricted to deal with so Trick Room teams that has in the main Trick Room setter DM Necrozma can be easily dealt with.

Trick Room teams aren’t particularly hard to stall due to the shared bulk of the team and Incineroar’s Fake Out option.

Weak Match Ups

Xerneas isn’t a great problem per se but it can be hard to deal with if paired with Groudon since it can deal massive damage to Celesteela and Tapu Fini can’t resist a Precipice Blades-Moonblast combination.

Yveltal is probably the hardest restricted to deal with due to its unpredictability, a Snarl-Tailwind variant can be very annoying but a purely physical set with Knock Off can cripple this team pretty badly removing super berries or Reshiram’s Life Orb.

Groudon can be tricky, especially if in speed advantage in respect to Reshiram since there aren’t real counters in this team.

General Weaknesses and Strengths

This can seem strange, but one of the thing I like the most of this team is how fun it is to play with, it has some techs and odd picks but they work very well together, Reshiram is simply fun to play due to its sheer power especially under the sun.

This team likes to switch Pokémon on the field to accommodate various strategies or “combos” so it is pretty hard to read in a best of one scenario.

I didn’t find “auto-loss” match ups (even if some are very hard like Yveltal-Groudon) but it has a very hard learning curve, you’ll begin to play it correctly after a bit of practice, it isn’t the generic ScarfOgre-Ludicolo or Smeargle-Xerneas team.

Hard Trick Room teams aren’t easy, it takes a bit of preparation for those match ups, especially with Gravity Bronzong.

Last but not least, it doesn’t take a lot of planning to play this team since I tried to take into consideration all the major team archetypes and build something that can be called a check to those.

To conclude, if you are looking for a team to have fun with trying some odd Pokémon you don’t usually see used you’ll like this team, as I said every time, I try to build fun teams to share not teams built for laddering so this team won’t likely bring you to 1700 on battle spot but it’s a good mid-ladder to have fun with while preparing for the real challenge!

Thank you for taking the time to read this article! For suggestions or if you want me to build around a particular Pokémon or strategy let me know here or on Twitter at @JohnnyHax!