Gen 6 Retrospective - What Pokemon did you use?

As Gen 6 draws to a close, I thought it might be interesting (and amusing) for us to catalogue what Pokemon we wound up actually raising (or obtaining) and using for competitive play in any Battle Spot format or event. I'm inviting everyone to take a spin through their boxes and post the results below. It might be interesting to add a few notes about the formats it was used in or built for, whether it worked, if it was just memey bullshit, etc. What are you surprised you ever used for anything? Or is there something popular you're surprised to see you never used at all?

Used Competitive Pokemon - Gen 6

-Aegislash
(Doubles; Triples; Rotation; Not much to say here, as it's a good 'mon. I've only run the standard special variants with either Sub or Wideguard; nothing fancy. Despite that, Aegislash tends to be a Pokemon I'm more likely to lose to than win with, for whatever reason.)
-Amoonguss
(Doubles; VGC '15; Triples; Everyone knows how good this is, and I didn't do anything special with it.)*
-Aromatisse
(Underused Doubles special season; Aromatisse is booty. It's like a child's idea of what a good Trick Room-setter would be.)
-Azumarill
(Doubles; the first team I slapped this onto shot right into the 1800s despite being nothing but haphazardly selected goodstuff. Predictable but threatening.)*
-Bisharp
(Doubles; including VGC '15 events; Nabbed me 18th at my first regional, but the doubles meta became really unkind to it as CHALK and bulk became more common.)*
-Blastoise (Triples; Great, and used on several serious teams; recommended)*
-Blaziken (Badly messed around with it in singles; I know it's good, but didn't do a whole lot with it)
-Camerupt
(Triples; Underused Doubles special season; I never did find this to be anything other than second-tier, even in its best Triples archetypes once the novelty wore off.)
-Chandelure
(Rotation; Not bueno)
-Charizard (Doubles as Mega Charizard Y (good); Rotation Mega Charizard X (iffy))
-Clefable
(Doubles)
-Clefairy
(Triples)
-Cloyster
(Rotation)
-Crobat
(Underused Doubles special season; I actually only used a Choice Band variant in that one special season. Never gave it a try outside of Showdown in its favored VGC '16 meta, as I preferred Talonflame nine times out of ten.)
-Cresselia
(Doubles; VGC '16; I like Cresselia. I used a Calm Mind variant in normal doubles on a team or two, which I think is only okay, but my favorite run with it was as a Trick Room/Skill Swap/Helping Hand support in VGC '16, while still getting a roll on Mega Salamence with Ice Beam. Cress and Groudon are like Ludicolo+Politoed in my mind.)*
-Ditto
(Singles, kind of; Really just made sure I had one with perfect HP and slapped a Choice Scarf on it)
-Dragalge
(Underused Doubles special season; Scrappy Skirmish; Dragalge sounds cool, but it's really hard to nab KOs with it, even in more restricted metas. I did see a really solid triples team that used it though.)
-Durant (Rotation; Truant and Entrain. Hilariously worked a little bit. Would not recommend.)
-Dusclops
(Triples; One of the best Trick Room-setters in the format, but by the time I tried it, I think it was a little too familiar, and it didn't form a part of any of my best runs. Its predictability hurts it, but it's still the lynchpin of some extremely threatening Trick Room weather teams. Good 'mon.)
-Garchomp
(Doubles, but only on a team built for VGC '14; Rotation)
-Gardevoir
(Doubles; Festive Feud; VGC '15 events; A+ Pokemon; Was my go-to Mega for doubles; Got 18th place in my first regional with a variant built for Tailwind running HP Ground, and later switched to a Trick Room variant for a top 100 Festive Feud finish, some PCs, and some 1800s Battle Spot runs.)*
-Gastrodon
(Triples; Phenomenal Pokemon on the right team; Idea taken from Epalk)*
-Gengar
(Doubles; VGC '15 events; both standard and Mega)*
-Gothitelle
(Triples; If your Gothitelle isn't named "Bright Eyes," what are you even doing)
-Groudon
(VGC '16 and corresponding special ladders)*
-Gyarados
(Doubles; Scrappy Skirmish; support non-Mega only)
-Heatran
(Doubles; Triples; I was never super comfortable with Heatran until I started running Scar's bulky Shuca HP Ice variant, and oh my god, I love it to death; Great Pokemon)*
-Heracross
(Doubles; Scrappy Skirmish; Underused Doubles special season; Would be genuinely great in a world without Sylveon and Landorus)
-Hitmontop
(Triples)*
-Houndoom
(Triples; Mega, with manual Sunny Day, Tailwind Helping hand stuff. Can't really recommend. You need to somehow get Helping Hand, Wide Guard, Feint/Snatch, Quick Guard/redirection, and a Trick Room-reverser all on the field at the same time, or there's a good chance Houndoom isn't doing much.)
-Hydreigon
(Doubles; team built for VGC '14; I've messed around with it on the main ladder, but the meta became really unkind to it, with fast Fighting types and strong Fairy moves everywhere.)
-Infernape (Doubles; Scrappy Skirmish; Underused Doubles special season; A second-class Fake Out supporter no matter how you slice it. I've tried both Blaze/Protect variants and Iron Fist/Mach Punch. It's decent, but never helped form a really solid team for me, even in restricted metas. Part of its issue is that it's built more offensively than most Fake Out support, so you want it to become your answer to a handful of threats that go down to Fighting or Fire moves. However, it lacks the durability and doesn't have quite enough offense to be a reliable check. It was looking decent in the Sinnoh Classic, as a response to Weavile and a handful of popular Pokemon, but even if I'd had time to actually do the competition, I don't think it was going to make the final cut.)
-Jellicent
(Underused Doubles special season; Triples; Even in its best Triples teams, I never found it to be anything but mediocre. Other Trick Room-setters offer better utility, and its offense doesn't amount to much once in it, even with Water Spout.)
-Kangaskhan (Doubles; Triples; VGC '16; Rotation; Kind of a bad 'mon, imo. Maybe its day will come in Sun and Moon.)*
-Kecleon
(Triples; Festive Feud; Kecleon was probably my favorite weird niche 'mon this generation)*
-Klefki
(Doubles; Rotation)
-Krookodile
(Festive Feud; Landorus-lite)*
-Landorus
(Doubles; Triples)*
-Lopunny (Memey Doubles)
-Ludicolo
(Doubles; Triples; Underused Doubles; It's Ludicolo)
-Mawile
(Doubles; Triples, primarily; Rotation)
-Meowstic
(Triples; Real talk? I think Meowstic is ass. I only used it in my earliest Triples-specific team, and a handful of random box teams because I was traded a fully EV'd clone. Like Aromatisse is a child's version of a Trick Room-setter, Meowstic feels like a child's version of generalized support, offering absolutely no pressure. Hope you really like extra-priority Quick Guard and Safe-Swagger.)
-Metagross
(Doubles)
-Mienshao
(Triples)
-Milotic
(Doubles; Only became better as CHALK picked up; Maranga Berry Milotic is a big problem for a lot of teams.)*
-Octillery
(Festive Feud; Memey Triples; Octillery was sort of a Blastoise-lite in Festive Feud, patching a few coverage holes and Water Spouting while it fished for Moody boosts with Leftovers and Protect. Since it could only get one really bad drop, in SpA, Moody helped a lot more than it hurt. In regular Triples, I ran it once on a kind of jokey Rain Room team, so I could put it next to Mawile, but it surprisingly managed to hold on fairly reliably until near the 1700s. Kind of dumb, but a lot of fun.)*
-Pachirisu
(Doubles; Underused Doubles special season)
-Piloswine
(Extremely memey Singles set I hesitate to even include here; Roar+Stealth Rocks+Fissure; Not recommended, but kind of amusing)
-Politoed (Doubles; Triples; Underused Doubles special season)
-Porygon 2
(Doubles; Rotation)
-Raichu
(Doubles)
-Rotom
(Doubles)
-Salamence
(Doubles; I never was very good at piloting it, but I never really built a proper team around it either.)
-Scizor
(Doubles; Underused Doubles special season; Poor Scizor; It suffers from being an incredibly specific response to a handful of Pokemon, and being obliterated by absolutely everything else. It doesn't help that it needs Choice Band or Swords Dance to effectively do its jobs.)
-Smeargle
(Doubles; VGC '16; Triples; Festive Feud; So good; Despite much hatred for its use of Dark Void, it truly was one of the best support 'mons in Gen 6 Triples and VGC '16, and I wound up building several with different tech)*
-Spiritomb
(Rotation; Bad, bad Aegislash counter. Don't do it. Have taken it into some joke Doubles matches.)
-Sylveon
(Doubles; Triples, primarily; Sylveon is a monster no matter the format, but I found it had a much better time in Triples, where it was less likely to be prayed upon immediately by fast physical attackers. Even in situations where Wide Guard can't be avoided, one Choice Specs Moon Blast can be enough to swing a game. While I never much liked the non-Choice variants, every time I wound up with a Triples team that lacked Sylveon, I'd ask myself why I wasn't using it.)*
-Suicune
(Doubles; Honestly, I've never really liked Suicune)
-Talonflame
(Every format, including multiple VGC seasons and Wi-Fi tournaments. What's your kink? Talonflame can do it. Wound up with four of these built to do different things.)*
-Tauros
(Doubles)
-Thundurus
(Doubles; VGC '15; Rotation with a poor build for a hot second; Tried with both Calm Sitrus and Timid Life Orb variants. Both are disgustingly good, and the most you'll ever regret with it is that you aren't running one of its six useful moves.)*
-Togekiss
(Doubles; VGC '15; Scrappy Skirmish)*
-Terrakion
(Doubles; VGC '15; Triples; Remember when this guy was a Kangaskhan counter? The longer the generation went on, the less he came out of the box. He was on my one successful regionals team though.)*
-Tyranitar
(Doubles; VGC '15)*
-Venusaur
(Doubles, Chlorophyll-abuser only; never built one for Mega Venusaur)
-Whimsicott
(Triples; memey bullshit. Don't think I ever used it in tandem with Mega Gengar in Doubles.)
-Xerneas
(VGC '16 and corresponding special ladders)*
-Zapdos
(Doubles; VGC '15; Scrappy Skirmish; Underused Doubles special season)*

*These Pokemon either broke 1800, helped a team place within the top 100 globally at the end of a season or online competition, or placed highly at a live event

Showdown doesn't count for this, by the way; this isn't everything you've tested. Just things that have at some point been in a box on your cart, fully EV trained, and been used on Battle Spot.
 
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This is a list of the pokemon i've been using competitively (and i have on cart), even if just once.

-Espeon (Battle Spot Singles, Dual Screen supporter.) *

My fav mon, I worked a lot around it, creating my own evs spread to make it work in a bss team that could break the 1800 mark.

-Salamence (Battle Spot Singles, Mega evolution Adamant physical attacker; Battle Spot Singles, Mega evolution Timid special attacker; Battle Spot Doubles, Mega evolution Timid SpA attacker and Tailwind setter; Sinnoh Classic, normal form life orb SpA attacker and Tailwind support) *

The mega i use the most. There is no special reason behind this, it just suits my playstyle.

-Ferrothorn (Battle Spot Singles, standard physical def tank) *

Not much to say about it, it's just a great partner for Mence.

-Conkeldurr (Battle Spot Singles, AV Guts attacker; Battle Spot Doubles, Sheer Force attacker) *^

I love the fact that this thing can literally run a set for every ability it has.

-Mamoswine (Battle Spot Singles, Lum attacker)

The answer to my deep, deep hate to thundurus.

-Swampert (Battle Spot Singles, Expert Belt tank) *

Mamo's happy brother without steel and fighting weakness. I tried a lot of swamp's sets but i always go back to the Expert belt version. Ice/Ground/Water hqw an amazing coverage, so why not? I mean, with expert belt i'm free to invest in bulk and still get 2hkos or even ohkos.

-Heatran (Battle Spot Singles, Air Balloon Attacker; Battle Spot Singles toxic-taunt Cresselia/Tflame counter)

i was amazed of how Air Balloon can make this thing win over its checks so easily, and with its counters out just winning games with it

-Klefki (Battle Spot Singles, Swagger/TWave ragequit generator)

i love it when i use it and hate it when i don't. Classic Klefki i guess..

-Sylveon (Battle Spot Singles, Choice Specs Attacker) *

i started using him to have a cresselia/thundurus/slowbro counter that could complete the dragon/steel core with fairy type. Hyper Voicing over subs is orgasmic.

-Blastoise (Battle Spot Doubles, Water Spout Megastoise)

my second favorite mon after Espeon. I've used it with decent results in doubles: tailwind water spout is a thing.

-Raichu (Battle Spot Doubles, standard Raichu)

standard with megastoise. It worked also as a FO/lightning rod supporter in other teams, but did its best with the blastoise team.

-Talonflame (Battle Spot Doubles, standard Tailwind setter)

i'm not a fan of tflame, but well...priority tailwind.

-Roserade (Battle Spot Doubles, Expert Belt attacker)

Technician Hidden Power is great, and on the special side this mon can even take supereff. hits fairly well.

-Latios (Battle Spot Doubles, Life Orb attacker and tailwind setter)

i felt like Specs wasn't adapting to my playstyle, so i just sticked tailwind on it using its good type synergy with megastoise. Did decent, but not great.

-Hitmontop (Battle Spot Doubles, standard wide guard/intimidate supporter)

i often use Top as a filler in many of my doubles teams. I mean, wide guard, intimidate, fake out and feint... what could you ask more?

-Smeargle (Battle Spot Doubles, standard Dark void/redirection supporter; Johto Classic, Dark Void supporter)

Disgusting mon, giving me an easy way to use megastoise.

-Charizard (Battle Spot Doubles, MegazardY Sun attacker) ^

what can i say here. I am i fan of Water Spout Blastoise, but aren't Sun Heat Waves even better?

-Gengar (Battle Spot Doubles, sashed attacker) ^

Love sash on him, hate the mega. i had pretty good scores with it in doubles, but always did so bad in singles. I don't even know why rofl, but w/e

-Cresselia (Battle Spot Doubles, Trick room setter; Battle Spot Singles, standard Lunar Dance) ^

cheap af.

-Rhyperior (Battle Spot Doubles, Weakness policy Tr attacker) ^

i feel pretty comfortable in doubles with this. When i use chardY i usually build the team with this thing too.

-Milotic (Battle Spot Doubles, AV Special tank) ^

sick special tank, and it's always good to run "Competitive" in doubles.

-Heracross (Battle Spot Singles, standard MegaHera)

huge fan of Skill Link here. I always tried to use this thing, without much success sadly

-Abomasnow (Battle Spot Singles, Sashed mixed attacker)

my favorite weather inducer. Used it a lot in vgc 13, now i'm using it in bss and it's working fine.

-Cloyster (Battle Spot Singles, Scarfed attacker)

Like heracross, i love skill link and well... I used it with shell smash behind screens before, but had poor results with it, so i sticked a scarf on it thinking that it could be a good idea, but never really used it in a team.

-Greninja (Battle Spot Singles, standard special attacker; Battle Spot Special 17, Specs Attacker)

good stuff, being good stuff.

-Donphan (Battle Spot Special 17, Custap Berry attacker)

if i can use gen1 or gen2 mon and make them work, i'm always happy. This mon was pretty strong in the bss17 meta.

-Entei (Battle Spot Singles/Battle Spot Special 17, Choice Band attacker)

Just braindeadly spam Sacred Fire and don't care. That's why i do and it mostly works :|

-Zapdos (Johto Classic, Specs attacker)

this is how i knew zapdos in gen1, a strong attacker. I used it this way in the JC and it worked very fine.

-Persian (Johto Classic, Assist Dark void)

was a good idea on paper, but worked so bad due to bad luck in the JC that i left him in my box after that experience and never used it again.

-Ditto (Johto Classic, well...It's Ditto)

i think he is still having fun somewhere in the daycare

-Scizor (Johto Classic, standard Lum; Battle Spot Singles, standard MegaSciz)

i fell in love with its mega after playing for a while with the notorious "LatiLati" team.

-Quagsire (Johto Classic, Unware Chesto-Rest/Recover)

Unware and good looking. What else?




There is a * on the Bss mons i've used to hit the 1800 mark on cart and top ladder on ps, and a ^ on the mons that i'm using in my doubles team with whom i achieved similar results
 
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So many likes, so few replies. You don't have to do a big fancy list like Solerme and I did. Just open up some PC boxes and post reflections.
 

cant say

twitch.tv/jakecantsay
is a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Team Rater Alumnusis a Top Social Media Contributor Alumnusis a Senior Staff Member Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
So many likes, so few replies. You don't have to do a big fancy list like Solerme and I did. Just open up some PC boxes and post reflections.
I think it's because we're in the middle of Battle Spot Premier League, and posting what Pokemon you use on cart may be giving away information to be scouted. It's a great thread idea, just awkward timing.
 

ethan06

⋖(☼┆☼)⋗
is a Community Contributor Alumnus
You don't have to do a big fancy list like Solerme and I did.
i do what i want

aegislash
i did this list alphabetically, but even if i didn't, this would still be at the top. it's the cornerstone, and oftentimes the focus, of the majority of my teams, doubles and singles. i was the original creator of the physically defensive weakness policy set in battle spot singles, and it's such an effective lure that it's still my most used aegislash set. i've also had a lot of fun with substitute sets such as subtoxic and offensive sub, and replays can be found of me outplaying opponents with king's shield mindgames on ps ladder. best mon

aerodactyl
tried building around this once for a competition, pretty okay but not mind-blowing. speed is nice but doesn't get ohkos ever and it kinda needs to, makes a cute talonflame check tho. would be a lot better if it checked thundurus properly

amoonguss
never got a look in on this one as far as singles were concerned, but it was a godsend in doubles and vgc formats. slap one of these one your team alongside knock off and you won't have a problem with trick room ever again. basically it's a mini toolbox with redirection and status and a little bit of chip damage when you need it, and it's just nice to have. a lot nicer in vgc16 than in standard doubles tho, more kyogre/xern and less heatran

alakazam
used this twice, once on my xy-era team hail to the thief as a modest mega set, and once as timid lo before i realised that set was kinda bad... mega alazakam is awesome for hole-punching and stallbreaking with trace and taunt, not for every matchup but it has a job and it does it well. life orb just didn't hit hard enough :/

altaria
this one's fun. basically a less good salamence in a lot of ways, but the fairy typing can be abused to decent effect against dragons and weaker ice beam users like cresselia. pixie voice is also great and a lot more splashable than aerilate. i've used dd and a bunch of special sets, including subtoxic that one time which isn't ideal when you lose to steels either way ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

azumarill
the original gluemon. not a big fan of belly drum but i've used choice band a lot, as well as lum berry sets for stuff like breloom back when peopleweren't clever enough to just click bullet seed t1. awesome blaziken check, stops dragons occasionally, pair with latios for the ultimate garchomp beating duo. not a ton to say here.

blaziken
for the longest time this sat in the "i'm better than this" tier with talonflame/kang/liepard/smeargle/chansey. i've still never used kang or the aids brigade but blaze and talon have dropped down because good fire attackers are hard to find. i've used lo hp ice and adamant wow mega, and i prefer the mega set due to the freedom with which you can burn things. also mega flare blitz is disgustingly strong \o/

breloom
don't use this often. basically i normally just go with the regular old spore/mach/seed/tomb set but i've ditched tomb for force palm and sd on occasion. really not much to say here lol, it's breloom

camerupt
mega camerupt is something that's really commonly swept under the rug due to the 4x water weakness but it's actually really good. hear me out. fire/ground typing and really decent bulk makes camerupt one of the best thundurus checks in the game, and sheer force keeps camel from needing too much offensive investment. pairing with rocky helmet serperior virtually eliminates all of camel's biggest weaknesses (kang, garchomp, waters) and covers serp's to an extent too (big def investment lets you check talon with ancientpower ay). bops aegi, gengar, thund, heatran, ferrothorn, is a fire attacker and we like those, is a ground attacker and those are good too. i'm not a trick room fan at all so i've never used it on any tr archetype but on standard godstuffs it surprised me. do give it a shot before judging.

charizard
used a little of both megas very lightly, and only with standard wallbreaky sets (dd 3 attacks on x). strong mon, takes a lot of archetypes off guard, one of my teams went to absolute shit because it was zardx weak during a period where zardx was literally everywhere so rip. unfortunately av azu blocks them both, as do mega altaria and specs latios (yeah drop those dracos).

clawitzer
actual dog turd, do not use this mon. i had a long time where i attempted to make a specs clawitzer team work and it did a decent job, but as time wore on it proved to be slow and deceptively frail, and while it was extremely strong, it suffered greatly from "mega absol syndrome": wherein a pokemon consistently does 90-95% to any given target and then gets immediately ohkoed. still prefer it over blastoise tho, no mega and sludge bomb for azu are both gucc

conkeldurr
p bad ngl. used av a little earlier on and dropped it not long afterward. stops porygon2 better than anything else and is by far and away the best av user but doesn't have much of a niche unfortunately :/ very easy to stop with mons like cress and azu and mence and talon and zapdos etc., has to play a coinflip game with aegislash, takes more helmet and leech damage from ferrothorn than drain punch can heal and loses to kang despite being a bulky fighting type. it's a no from me

crawdaunt
this is decent, not amazing but just decent. hits like a truck but is often overly reliant on aqua jet, and there are too many fast offensive things in this format to give crawdaunt that much room to breathe. nice against aegislash tho, and I guess hippowdon

cresselia
used once, not the greatest of fun to use :/ one of those irritating mons that does magical things for other people but never really performs on my side of the field. used lunar dance twave and could never get it to work properly ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ leave it to the professionals i guess

cryogonal
hahahaha the meme. one of my greatest teams of all time features this mon. has levitate, outspeeds garchomp, takes special hits like no-one's business and bops things with lo freeze-dry and hp fire. sheer cold rounds off the god set. na but really this thing's pretty ass, as special ice-types go it's pretty decent but really, stick to mamoswine unless you're a real one

durant
don't. use. this. this mon is the reason i can say that i've lost a game to an iron head miss. used sash hone claws, which is a decent set on paper but struggles to get the hone claws off safely and misses literally everything if you don't. if you like rolling the dice then go ahead but if not then scizor is a thing that exists

excadrill
good mon all the way through. i've used sand once or twice but i much prefer scarf mold breaker for the pure spammability of mb earthquake against teams that think rotom-w gengar hydreigon are sufficient as "ground immunes". makes a fine pair with mega pidgeot and doesn't straight up die to kangaskhan which is nice. very splashable if you're not feeling scarfchomp that day and/or you really hate rotom

ferrothorn
this doesn't die <3 one of those mons that i tend to just chuck on a team when i hit the "dies to azu" part of teambuilding, and my team has too much special shit on it for latios or roserade. don't use it that much as a kang check because they all run secret power nowadays and ghosts are generally more consistent but it has its uses.

garchomp
ah yes, king of the hill. i have this on a bunch of good teams; generally when i'm not using a more interesting ground type i have one of these. never used mega but choice band is a fun set, scarf wins you games and sash-sd type sets are a good time. just don't use rocky helmet, both offensive and that ou set are pretty dong here unless you build them really bulky, and even then that defeats the purpose of that nice 102 speed. not much else i can say about this mon as it's been explored veeerrrry thoroughly

gardevoir
gardevoir is eh. scarf is a decent set that can take people off guard but i don't like that it gets utterly stonewalled by virtually every steel in the format. mega gardevoir has the same problem but also has an awful speed tier. sub cm dismantles slower builds tho so it can be cool as a secondary mega :]

gengar
basically i only every really use this when a team has a ridiculous kanga problem. not a huge fan of the mega, although it is amazing, so i've only used it a little bit. most gengar i use are sash or lol with wow for shutting kang down as quickly and painlessly as possible, fuck that mon. when i do use megagar it's always dbond as that's the cleanest way to capitalise on shadow tag; casinogar has a firm place on my "i'm better than this" list :c

gourgeist
i still respect this thing as a counter to kangaskhan. stupidly bulky and with an auspicious typing. unfortunately, slow passive grass-types aren't in high demand currently so it sees no use but it's one of the better ghosts for taking care of kang. better than cofag in any case

greninja
the bane of every team i build. this thing can be so hard to deal with if i'm not running talonflame or blaziken or weavile; so many of my go-to mons reside in the 100-120 speed bracket and greninja has the coverage to bop everything in the meta twice over. used it myself once or twice and it is more or less guaranteed a kill, sometimes two with sash. very slept-on threat imo, always take it seriously while building (my megazam squad is 6-0ed by dpulse/beam/hydro fun fact)

gyarados
mega gyarados is a very fun mega to use. pretty much always run dd crunch, after that i run some selection of waterfall eq ice fang sub taunt. substitute is a very solid move on megados but it is prone to getting outsped and statused before the sub goes up, so jolly > adamant is a good call. it's better than sharpedo in any case

hawlucha
hahaha so this is the centrepiece to my greatest oras-era team. basically, hawlucha is a very strong cleaner that gets stopped by a select number of things; namely, aegislash, thundurus, cresselia, talonflame, zapdos. obviously, you'll find at least one of these on almost every team you fight, so the team was built around that, but fighting/flying coverage deals with a surprisingly large chunk of the meta. unburden means that you check blaziken which is nice, and power herb sky attack is non-contact, can flinch, and is very strong, which is very nice. pairs well with tyranitar, mamoswine, hydreigon etc. just beat down its counters and win games

haxorus
physical dragon that beats rotom-w, literally its only niche. mence is a lot better in most ways but haxorus finds it easier to muscle through fairies with pjab and rotom formes with eq. lum dd/outrage/eq/pjab is the only really usable set; sd could be ok but the speed lets it down a lot against most teams so dd's speed boost is pretty much required.

heatran
kind of meh on this mon. it's bulky as hell and it beats aegislash really well, but has a bad habit of losing to random shit and doesn't check things like thundurus as well as it could :/ it's also a steel that loses to kangaskhan so that's a strike. offensive sets are p bad on the whole, although scarf has potential if you're not dumb enough to use overheat. i like spdef subtoxic

heliolisk
yeah don't use this. experimented with it as a talon check until i realised that dry skin meant that talon could just flare blitz ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ nice against rain but rain isn't common enough to justify using it over, say, thundurus or manectric

hippowdon
used this once, on the cryogonal meme squad. does its job reasonably well but wants all of eq, yawn, stealth rock, slack off, rock tomb. yawn is annoying to play against and it doesn't exactly fold in a breeze. good mon do recommend for hazard shuffling and stopping electric types

hydreigon
when i use this, it's a scarf set to bop ghosts and dragons and ferrothorn. i'm surprised people don't use this more often with kang, as it deals with most of kang's very few solid checks, but i digress. i used taunt twave once and cryogonal squad has an expert belt one but they're both pretty bad

jynx
haha this is a fun mon. dry skin is a godly ability and between that, energy ball, focus sash, and lovely kiss, jynx is able to royally screw around with things like azumarill, suicune, rotom-w as well as having psychic and ice beam to chunk venusaur, garchomp, conkeldurr, zapdos etc. while banking on sash to deal with the faster things. lovely kiss is inaccurate but still p nice to spam, breloom style. again, very niche but cool mon :)

krookodile
no real reason to use this over landorus-t unless you really need a shadow ball switch-in. used it once with scarf, with intimidate it can switch in on talonflame once and deal with it with stone edge. crunch and eq are both nice and spammable, and being able to chunk cress is nice. if you're using this over landot make sure you're leaning really hard on that dark stab, or on moxie. you probably want knock off so just go with lando lol

latios
ah this is one of my favourites. specs latios is a really nice tech that is able to trick and cripple pokemon like porygon2 and chansey, as well as dropping thunderbolts on suicune and azumarill (checking bd azu is latios' biggest draw) and taking advantage of garchomp to drop disgustingly strong draco meteors. psychic stab for venusaur is beautiful as well. i use this one at least three of my best teams and wouldn't have it any other way :)

landorus-t
used av once and scarf one other time, and also yache berry in a moment of thundurus-induced desperation fuck thundurus. good mon. does most of the things garchomp does but also pivots and knocks thing off. pairs very well with most rotom formes thanks to the power of voltturn. avoid physically bulky sets, you're better off outspeeding and superpowering kang. intimidate <3

lopunny
this is what i use when i want a normal attacker. beats kang, bops all the fighting weaks, perfect neutral coverage ayy. brought this to my local regionals in vgc15 and placed 19th so that's decent, one of my best singles teams features sub encore lop which is a nice workaround for aegi, lop forces a ton of switches so sub is neat in general as well. also it beats greninja f uck greninja >:c

lucario
used np once, failed to inspire me. haven't bothered with physical bc based hawlucha but i respect close combat's strength. luckily aegislash is virtually a 100% counter so it's been a long time since i got swept by one of these. doesn't give me the fear, next please

mamoswine
fuck. thundurus. this is a good mon, i've used cb, life orb, sash lead, scarf all to pretty great effect. icicle spear is broken and helps me deal with most dragons and ground types without having to slow down. it is frail as balls so you need to play around it carefully, and i do prefer weavile for the speed and fake out, but i've used it a lot and it has a solid place on several of my teams. recommended

mandibuzz
used it once, nice check to aegi and breloom. disgustingly bulky. kinda passive. has potential but i haven't used it extensively enough to get a good feel for it. idk try it out

manectric
okay so back at the beginning of xy, when people were still freaking out about talonflame, i mained this for like six months. i got very familiar with the garchomp interaction (hp ice is a roll, -1 eq is also a roll good times) and had a lot of fun voltturning and junk. honestly it doesn't really hit hard enough to be good and even -1 brave bird does 30% so yeah don't use this unless you're all about the intimidate. rotom-h is honestly better

mawile
mawile is fun. best typing ever conceived, hits like a truck, sucker punches things yeah good time. i've only ever really used sub focus punch because that shit is fun but regular aoa and sd mawile sets are good too i guess. subpunch is nice for luring tran and ferrothorn, and mawile behind a sub wins games by itself either way. if that sub goes up then focus punch is spammable beyond belief. good tr mega but i don't play tr as mentioned so w/e

medicham
tried this once a long time ago on megazam squad before i settled on megazam. this thing would be a lot better if it didn't speed tie with kang. still better than gallade bc fake out and better immediate damage. honestly they're both p bad, next

metagross
decent mega. checks fairies really well. easy to wall tho, and dies straight up to aegislash and scarftar and heatran and garchomp. the meta just isn't very kind to it :/ i've had fun before with sub hone claws, which patches the accuracy on mash and zen headbutt and makes it respectable as a threat. but yeah, just use aegislash lol

nidoqueen
the teambuilding focus on one of my better teams. to this day i'm not sure what this thing is meant to achieve but essentially it's nidoking except not made of tissue paper. p nice for hole-punching, one-time checking things like +1 mence, bopping aegislash and friends with earth power, bopping fairies with sludge wave. one of these days i'll sketch out a decent spread and set for it but for the time being it's pulling its weight and that speaks well for it

pidgeot
the focus of my pidgeot team. decent but not incredible, similar deal to hawlucha in that it clicks flying moves and needs help coping with a specific group of pokemon, in this case heatran, ttar and rotom. honestly it struggles, but it's still nice to have when you need a reliable heat wave on, say, ferrothorn, or there's a breloom giving you grief or something. outspeeds and kos mence and garchomp with hp ice which is cute, also helps break stall bc hurricane confusion and the hp ice ohko on gliscor. try it if you like but there are better ways to fill your teamslots

poliwrath
used a resttalk scald circle throw set once for the memes. lol don't try this total everything bait

raikou
this thing isn't winning awards any time soon but it's a reasonable electric type as electric types go. it's the one you use if you want to beat other electric-types as well; av raikou boops thundurus, zapdos and rotom-w right on the head. unfortunately it's not that good at a bunch of other things (greninja lo gunk shot is capable of netting the ohko rip) so use carefully and sparingly

roserade
aaaaah roserade. my favourite offensive grass type; modest lo hits really goddamn hard and you click sleep powder on the things you don't 2hko with stabs and hp fire. decent special bulk but paper-thin physically, w/e. take that thundurus twave and do a clean 70% with sludge bomb easy, then wipe the para with natural cure. technician is only really helpful for hp fire, but yeah <3 this mon. very underrated

rotom-h
not as big a fan of this as rotom-w but still solid for if you really need to shut down electric-types and i guess serperior. will-o-wisp to burn things, volt switch pivot around, maybe net a discharge para, click overheat once and either miss or become total setup fodder. rotom-heat has a very unique job which means it vital on certain types of teams but that doesn't make it a stellar mon :/

rotom-w
now this is where it's at. put a rotom-wash on your team and all of your talonflame problems evaporate. this is a staple on 60% of my teams - favourite set is chestorest (so much more consistent in 3v3 than sitrus or pain split, try it) but specs and scarf are respectable too. sits in front of ground-types and clicks hydro, and nabs cheap momentum with volt switch on virtually everything else. if you're having blaziken/volcarona/zardx then slap twave on it, if not then just will-o-wisp. didn't like this mon much initially but then i tried it and it is very, very good. do recommend

salamence
mence is broken and imo slept on in a major way. used a bulky dd facade mence on the clawitzer squad that i later retired, and every time i brought it, it put the game on its back, occasionally netting wins that it had no right to. has a nice matchup vs kang which is always good, double-edge hits like a truck and at +1 mence is virtually unstoppable. pretty fun to play around with and good for netting cheap wins with the right support

sceptile
sceptile is nice. one of the better grass-types, this is pretty much /the/ counter to rotom-wash thanks to lightning rod. being stupid fast even before mega evolution is nice too, in case you need to win a speed tie against a mence or something and keep yourself from being swept. unfortunately its coverage is limited and it's not that strong, but it bops all the relevant water-types right on the head and chunks the good grounds too, not to mention dragon pulse being strong and spammable. definitely worth a solid look at

scizor
the fairy check for when you have a spare mega slot. even if you don't then choice band is legit. basically this thing takes hits, sets up sd, clicks bullet punch and is severely allergic to rotom and heatran, but that's okay because it bops the hell out of sylveon and doesn't care that much about anything else. nice and splashable, and probably your first stop if you want to see what a viable bug-type looks like

scrafty
did a teambuilding comp on this a while back and won it, embarrassingly enough. spdef lefties shed skin bulk up/rest/knock off/drain punch was the set, and it's more or less the perfect stallbreaker, only losing straight-up to massively powerful special attackers and pokemon with a type advantage. makes for some crazy stall matches. intimidate av is cool too but lacks power and ultimately fails to do much, best to leave that for doubles where it really shines :s

serperior
ah, helmet serp. this was a set that i took a while to warm up to, but once i did, hoo boy. one of the better kangaskhan checks, secret power be damned, that also checks garchomp and a whole slew of bulky water types. it can also paralyse ground-types ! as i mentioned earlier on, it pairs really well with mega camerupt but ground-types in general really help it out as thundurus and other electric types are the best checks for serperior. this pops up a lot in my teamlist bc it's such a handy blanket check to a lot of big meta threats

staraptor
used once, on a meme birdspam team. choice band staraptor destroys entire civilisations but suffers from a poor speed tier and no way to hit aegislash. great fun for slow teams, but once again not that practical for battling the top threats :/

starmie
it's on cryogonal squad, to sort of check blaziken and throw out specs analytic boosted hydro pumps once in a blue moon. honestly it kinda sucks, especially when aegislash is legal and everyone has a thundurus and a mega gengar and kang sucker punch blah blah blah,,,,,, yeah don't bother with starmie

talonflame
the menace. talonflame is great, usually i just use it to check blaziken and put grass-types in their place but seriously priority brave bird is stupidly good, even coming from a mon with 81 base attack. i've used a little bit of choice band (scary set, it can 2hko uninvested rotom) but mostly i stick to sharp beak or leftovers for flexibility and longevity. don't bother with life orb, the recoil is ridiculous and talonflame ultimately doesn't live long enough to make it worthwhile. protip: use will-o-wisp on this as a backup plan for kang

thundurus-i
ugh, thundurus-incarnate. that one mon that everyone bops me with, but never works when i try it out... used sub np on clawitzer squad but i could never settle on appropriate two-move coverage bc i was weak to mamoswine so i ended up with tbolt grass knot which is a gross set. never used a bulky set bc a) couldn't find a spread and b) ew, so i only really have experience with offensive lo sets. all they taught me is that you never get full paras when you really need them, and everyone else does. sigh

thundurus-t
this thing is more straight-forward. force weak hp ices from opposing electrics and kick out ungodly strong tbolts. i've used thundurus-t in a variety of ways, but they all tend to work as toolbox sets to get hits on a variety of things. thunderbolt, hp ice, grass knot, dark pulse, superpower... my personal favourite is sash nasty plot but i've also run choice scarf, double dance and i think specs once. fun fact, thund-t can 3-0 stall by itself by setting up two nasty plots on chansey (which can only seismic toss) then overpower it and clean sweep through skarm/gliscor/slowbro with tbolt and hp ice. probably best to run leftovers if you're using it for that express purpose tho

togekiss
fun with flinches. usually i use this as a paraflincher when i've had it with the ladder's bullshit but i've run offensive scarf before as well, and that's a fun set. checks garchomp astoundingly well and deals with all the things flying types are supposed to so this gets a pass from me :) not always bulky enough to deal with the top threats and thundurus turns it down flat but it has its place

tornadus-t
yeah don't bother with this. not strong enough, air slash hits for piss damage and hurricane will miss at the most crucial moments so basically only run it on rain if you have to try it. 121 speed knock off is nice for latios and gengar tho, as is heat wave for ferrothorn. the pivoting utility is less valuable in 3v3 so other things can do these jobs better

typhlosion
don't use this. tried it once bc scarf eruption + flash fire looked tempting but everyone runs priority and/or chansey so yeah nah

tyranitar
talonflame check for if you hate gengar/don't want to use rotom-w. mostly just use scarf but mega dd is pretty legit too, mixed sets tend to get needlessly complex and it's best to build this thing with speed in mind so you don't have to contend with its billion weaknesses. i use this a lot in the fifth or sixth slot when i've finished a core and noticed that talon rolls me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ very auspicious typing, do recommend for bopping gengar and birds and psychics and kang with scarf superpower etc.

tyrantrum
this thing is tyranitar and garchomp's unholy love child. head smash hits really hard and is very easy to click. use either scarf or lum dd because, like ttar, this thing really appreciates speed. beats talonflame, loses to ferrothorn so run fire fang on choice scarf just in case. tends to lose when you miss head smash. shit i've been at this a while, i'm running out of different ways to say the same shit ://// pretty underrated, give it a shot

venusaur
this thing is the definition of "slept-on" - as a teambuilder, it's very easy to put together a well-rounded and prepared team and find that venusaur walls all six of your mons without breaking a sweat. it only shows up every fifty matches or so too so it slips under the radar really easily, long as you pack a talon or a mence or any psychic mon you should be fine. anyway my favourite venu set is subseed, as venusaur's extreme bulk makes it easy to set up substitutes and start stalling. watch out for gengar, it has a good typing for taking this on but past that, unless your opponent has a psychic or flying type or a gengar then happy stalling :)

volcarona
also slept on. there are many instances in which volcarona can set up a single quiver dance and then attack three times and win; basically, run cb azumarill and hope not to proc flame body, or else talonflame. heatran is shaky because some run hp ground, all other waters are shaky bc giga drain. scarf tar can put in work if you get it in before it boosts. only set worth using is quiver dance + 3 attacks, fiery dance/bug buzz or giga drain/hidden power of choice go flatten some squads

weavile
if my team is weak to greninja i use this. very good stab combination, very good speed stat, not ideal power, literally shedinja bulk. can't win them all, but lo fake out is nice for free damage and can help wear down talonflame somewhat. use either life orb or sash, sash is generally better but life orb helps to chunk things like gren and kang better with low kick. don't bother with icicle crash, it misses and fake out into ice shard does comparable damage anyway. check dragons and gengar and do 80% to kang and heatran, solid mon, top 3 for me

yanmega
used specs tinted lens once i think. very strong. also very niche so probably don't bother, if you do use yanmega tho avoid speed boost bc blaziken sharpedo scolipede are all better

zapdos
i hate this thing it never dies. used it once and it only ever died. i can't win with legendary electrics ;(

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i hope you enjoyed my list. this took me all day to type and i feel dizzy now so don't call me bad, this is just my take on some of the big players in the gen 6 bss meta. take it as you will (:
 
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Well, I'm sitting out BSPL entirely because it's on PS! so I'll be adding to this thread instead :P
Alphabets are for kids and auto-sorted lists, fuck all y'all I'm doing this in whatever stupid fucking "order" my brain shits out.

Aegislash

"535 BST? That's adorable" - Aegislash, 2013.
Absolutely THE best mon introduced in Gen 6 that was not a Mega. Obnoxious defensive typing, obnoxious to kill, Ghost is the new Dragon and is broke as shit offensively, and is an absolutely insurmountable counter to so much shit it's not even remotely funny. Takes a steaming shit on Gardevoir, Mence, and Khan (the top 3 megas of doubles) and winning 1v3 with Aegislash is perfectly reasonable at times. Sub Aegis is best Aegis, I have personally received actual death threats because of it. Has many other sets as well but none resulted in death threats and thus are probably inferior.
15/10, would use 6 on every team.

Alakazam

"WE WUZ KANGS" - Alakazam, Land Before Color.
Uncontested favorite pokemon ever, but endlessly disappointed in myslef for using it much less than deserved. Despite it being my second biggest breeding project to date, and currently wielding 7 different sets, both Mega and Non-Mega.
Sadly cursed to never inflict more than 99.5% of any given target's HP without Specs or a CM boost, and then immediately dies to anything that survives. God damn is a good troll though. Encore + Disable + base 120 (or 150 >:) ) Speed? TrickSpecs + Disable JUST for ePenis++ ? Bulky CM MegaZammy just to say "FINALLY I CAN OHKO SOMETHING OTHER THAN TOXICROAK"? Sash + T-Wave to be a shitty Thundurus? You bet.
Mass bred just to get an army of Sync mons.
Been gradually declining since GSC. Glad to see it actually improve for once.

Altaria
"I used to be normal. I was also a bird once. Now I just troll the everliving hell out of Charizard and rain teams" - Altaria, 2014.
My biggest breeding project ever (Calm/Bold/Modest/Impish/Adamant/Timid/Jolly), I actually pumped them all out on X/Y before we knew Mega Altaria's stats/ability/anything beyond mere existence. It looked ADORABLE and literally nothing in Pokemon history has needed a Mega more than Altaria. Never used it competitively, sadly, but it is the shining star of a rather successful Maison Rotations team.

Arcanine
"I AM NOT A FUCKING TIGER, AND I AM NOT A FUCKING LEGENDARY POKEMON. FUCK" - Arcanine, land before Blissey.
This was actually the primary nuke of my old Gen 5 Drought team (you do not want to know how stupidly fucking hard a mixed, Charcoal, Flash Fire + Drought + STAB boosted Arcanine can hit with Flare Blitz and Heat Wave in a world with no Megas), and while offensive sets are still pretty good I've been running it more defensive lately, since Fire is one of the best typings in the game (fuck birdspam and fairyfags) and Intimidate + WoW + Good bulk + Morning Sun is obnoxious. Oh, and Snarl, cuz why the hell not. Surprisingly good answer to a lot of mons.

Charizard
"I'm triggered by rocks, they've been a psychological nightmare since childhood..." - Charizard, in the land before color and rechargable batteries.
I've been running the EXACT SAME FUCKING CHARIZARD, right down to the EVs, since mid VGC14. Yes, seriously. Char-Y, as I'm sure everyone knows by now, is my #1 most spammed Mega and has killed more shit than I can even imagine tracking and has commanded its own dedicated team for years. Absolutely nothing is more familiar to me than Char-Y. It is by far my favorite Mega, that turned Drought from "borderline niche but mostly shit" (Ninetales, Gen 5) to "Very viable and you NEED to prep for it if you aren't running a TR Rain squad and/or 3+ checks".

Venusaur
"Ice Beam? You mock my fat ass" - Venusaur, every time it Mega Evolves.
Attached to Charizard at the hip, it is very much the best secondary mega I've ever seen. Fully functional as a Chlorophyll attacker, with sets ranging from Bulky Double Mega to Specs Chlorophyll to more niche Swords Dance/Growth sets and SubSeed dickery, it is often hard to pick only 4 moves to run. Sleep Powder is, on paper, disgusting since its damn near impossible to outspeed and Sleep is broke as a joke, but horrible accuracy / 1 turn sleeps were more than enough reason for me to abandon it and run a bulky, Leech Seed spewing Pledge engine.
Very capable as a stand-alone Mega and one could very much build a team around it, but all it really needs is Heatran or Aegislash to ruin someone's life. Literally had a guy threaten my life, to my face, at my first ever VGC in the Kansas City 2014 Regionals as a result of Mega Venusaur + SubAegis side-by-side against a pre-Mence Sand team. Part of me pitied him, but my inner shitlord was pleased beyond measure.
Current behemoth of sin dates back to early 2015, so isn't quite as old as my legendary Charizard.
12/10 would reccomend in place of Amoonguss on nearly any team.

Swampert
"I swear if one more fuckboy calls me "Swampy" I'm gonna chug 3 gallons of protein shakes per meal and kick his ass". - Swampert, prior to mega evolving.
Anyone familiar with Doubles will likely recall the famous story of Swampert, who basically did not exist at all, and one day came along with a brilliant Special-based offensive set with a sneaky Wide Guard support. It rapidly caught on, crushing Mence, double genie of healthy meta, Talonflame, Heatran, and a suprisingly long list of good things, all guised under its previously popular physical Mega Swampy set. It is now however, extremely obvious, and does laughable damage to anything it cannot hit SE such as Water types, Khan, Gardevoir, etc. I used it as part of my Pledge trio since it pairs well with Charizard and most other water starters are either total shit, or are named Feraligatr and thus do not run Water Pledge ever.
Not played with Mega Swampy since Rain is against my religion.
9/10, great on the right team, horrible on the wrong team, and has intense psychological value when paired with Thundurus. Standard Special Swampy set, or is it manual Rain + Mega Swampy? The wrong guess will probably rip your ass off.

Cresselia
"What's a 2HKO?" - Cresselia, 2006.
Literal queen of speed control, nothing keeps you faster than your foe better than the glowing pink moon-duck of 4th gen nightmares. T-Wave, Icy Wind, Trick Room, you want it, she's got it.
Also capable of slowly sweeping entire teams with Rocky Helmet + CM, and generally doesn't really give a shit about what is standing next to it or in front of it.
Parked on my Sun team for quite a while, with no regrets, 10/10.

Metagross
"Quadraxis pun was overdone by December 2004" - Metagross, 2005
If Aegislash didn't exist, the Metagross would probably be the mod badass Steel type ever. Works both Mega and non-mega (yes, I just uttered blasphemy), and is a cruel victim of the Gen 6 Steel nerf that was created for literally no purpose beyond making Aegislash and Bronzong killable while simultaneously boosting Ghost as the best offensive type in Gen 6. Mega makes it bulky, hard hitting, obnoxiously fast, and generally pretty damn good in general. Non-Mega still has more Attack than Terrakion and generally kills most of the same stuff, just without the outspeeding part. This is the only Mega I've competitively used beyond Char-Y/Venusaur and it's actually pretty good despite being shat on by Mega Khan and Heatran.
9.5/10, needs that Dark/Ghost resist back.

Mienshao

"Terrakion is for weak bitches that need 100% accuracy. Real men use the only kick that competes with Leon S. Kennedy" - Mienshao, VGC14.
Are you a Ghost type? Are you named Gyarados, Salamence, Landorus, Cresselia, or Gliscor? Can you reliably use Protect 3x in a row? If you answered "No" to all of these questions, then Mienshao probably 2HKO's you at worst.
It's extremely frail and high-risk, but like any difficult Far-East martial art it is extremely deadly in the hands of a master. Combining absolutely nuclear damage output with great Speed and obnoxious Wide Guard / Quick Guard / Fake Out / Feint / Fake Out / HP Ice / "Sash or LO?" mind games, Mienshao excellently commands the battlefield in Doubles, and even after an Intimidate it still OHKO's Kangaskhan - a feat that very few can boast, and is also very surprising to people that mistakenly believe it's useless at -1.
I've personally gotten a huge return out of Mienshao, HJK has only missed/blocked a meager handful of times, and it often claimed 1.5 KOs or more per battle.
9/10, horrible if you can't read Protects, useless vs faster foes. Generally safer to use Terrakion. Truly horrifying if you can read people like books and pressure Protects (Fake Out, Feint, Taunt, or Encore, all you need. Meinshao gets half of that itself). HJK outdamages literally everything, when in doubt, nuke. OHKOs anything frailer than (and including) 4 HP Garchomp.

Mandibuzz
"I am personally pro-death. I never die. No one seems to know that I'm immune to Spore. Corpses are delicious. I have the cutest babies. Oh, and I use human skulls for diapers." - Mandibuzz, March 7th, 2015.
Never use this in Doubles, ever. I only did it because I'm a known buzzard worshipper that deperately needed a Landog+Khan check, Ground immune, Ghost resist, and Tailwind support all in one slot, that wasn't completely useless vs Amoonguss.
But, it DID win me a tournament that I'll never let anyone live down.
Trigger warning: excessive use of Spore/Sleep Powder, Ice Beaming a Heatran, shitty bird puns, and Maxie/Archie battle theme. Rated M for Mandibuzz. May cause cranial hemmorhaging.
4.3/10, I guarentee something else does what you're trying to do better. I adore it though, did far better than expected.

Heracross
"Yes, I am oddly adorable despite having a giant, erect phallus growing out of my forehead" - Heracross, every time you open the summary screen.
I used Scarf Moxie Heracross as a stupidly successful part of my team a few months back. Surprisingly adept in most matchups, it caught few people by surprise since Heracross' #1 most obvious set since... what, RSE, is Scarf and the moveset hasn't changed in 10+ years. However, despite being incredibly fucking obvious it was still effective at revenge killing and checking a diverse list of things. Also very good against Rain teams; Ludicolo is a free KO and +1 Atk boost, Toed doesn't really do anything and at +1, becomes a free KO and +2 Atk boost. CC is extremely solid to lock into once resists are down (typically one per match, I didn't bring it vs Landog+Thundy+Garde), while Megahorn is a nice finisher to weakened Gardevoir and the odd list of Bug weaks in Doubles (Cress, TTar, Hydreigon, Ludicolo). Rock Slide wins games by pure hax, while Knock Off is arguably the best move in the game.
I also combined with SafeSwag Klefki for actual Status detterent once Moxie activated / Scarf +2 Atk Heracross is just plain funny.
Only real faults were Landog, Sylveon, and Talonflame. 9/10, try it you might like it.

Hydreigon
"Three heads are better than one, especially since this game doesn't have headshots" - Hydreigon, after Ghetsis invented Pokegen
Ah yes, the six-winged angel of death itself. Another much needed quote:
[01:46] <voodoo_pimp> Gen 6 was basically the equivalent of an 18-inch dildo for Hydreigon.
Our ever-lovable psychopathic killing machine has however remain largely unchanged despite joining the "Dragon with a highly exploitable 4x weakness" club. Dark Pulse is more spammable as ever, with Steel losing a resistance and the general decline of bulky Fighting types. Amazing alongside Metagross, Aegislash, or Landog, it's always a 33/33/33 flip of "Specs, Scarf, or LO + Protect since it doesn't need Earth Power anymore?".
9.9/10, would be perfect if Gardevoir didn't haunt 40% of teams.

Rhyperior
"lol, Hydro Pump" - Goliath, the only Rhyperior I've used since Gen 4.
Char-Y + Rhyperior is no joke. I may not of created the ultimate sin (the guy running TR Char-Y + WP Rhyperior + TR cress was the closest I've seen) but god damn if it wasn't comical.
AV Solid Rock Rhyperior with a specially defensive spread in Sun is... surprisingly difficult to kill. Now this was XY, before tutors aka Ice Punch, but it was actually enough to solidly tank Rotom-W's Hydro Pump and OHKO in return with Metal Burst. Absolutely fucking hilarious every time, and no foe ever hesitated to do it. People also automatically assume Lightningrod ESPECIALLY if they see Charizard in Team Preview, so Solid Rock really softens random Superpowers, Ice beams, and Earth Powers while psychologically deterring Thundurus/Zapdos (in addition to the "brutally countering and murdering" part) and random T-Waves on Cresselia, Gyarados, etc.
The Legendary Goliath still sits in my box of veterans (because unlike the US government, I don't leave mine to starve on the street as a way of saying "Thanks for being my meatshield and attack dog in my twisted political shitfest"), but now has Ice Punch over Metal Burst. Venusaur is better at killing Rotom-W anyway.
9/10, slow and crushed by Hyper Voice spam, but quite the beast nonetheless.

Rotom-W

"I've literally never accomplished anything, despite pain-in-the-ass typing" - Every time I use one.
Typing is great, kills landog and milotic, yadda yadda; but gets stomped by Khan, loses 1v1 to Thundy, depends on 70-85% accuracy to function, and generally never really gets much done any time I use it.
It also rarely accomplishes anything against me, since I always have either Venusaur or Virizion on whatever team I run. Solarbeam Char-Y and Hydreigon are also common team mates for me.
I've never actually seen anyone above 1600 use one, or have one on the team, all year.
5/10, does nothing except scare Landog + Milotic teams and bait Amoonguss.

Rotom-H

"I resist everything and actually kill shit. But if one more 90's kid names me EZ Bake I'm gonna jump into the bathtub with them" - Your haunted toaster oven
Literally took the same shitheap Rotom-W clone, converted to Ovenism, and stuck it next to a Virizion. It's amazing, kills things, including shit its not supposed to like Landog, and T-Wave > WoW means it actually hits things.
Goes great with multiple mons, but DO NOT, FOR THE LOVE OF ODIN, USE IT AS A FAIRY RESIST. It loses to Gardevoir. Every. Single. Time.
9.6/10, Landog is faster and Rock Slide WILL flinch. Useless vs Khan.

Virizion
"Ice Beam? lol. Fire Blast? Weak. Neutral Return? OH GOD I HAVE NO DE-" - Virizion, right now.
Utterly amazing on the right squad, it crushes Rain and Sand singlehandedly with relatively minor support, and is pretty badass with Intimidate. Nice, fast CC for Khan. Special bulk is incredible, eats super effective STAB Ice Beams just fine, is generally great against CHALK. Walls Landog (Ground/Rock/Dark/Bug don't really bother it) despite hating Intimidate. Typically runs LO Physical sets but I did love CM sets back in the days of Gen 5, need to run it again. Lack of special STAB is sad.
9.8/10, Mence/Garde sucks but MEGA METAGROSS GUYS.

Garchomp
"Gar-CHAWMP!!!" - the day Cynthia ripped your nipples off and killed your Infernape/Empoleon because you were too chickenshit to pick Torterra.
Commonly viewed as an inferior Landog in Doubles since 2013, Garchomp is actually picking up success among high rated Japanese players (And some north americans) by not being an outright liability against Bisharp/Milotic, and not needing Scarf to actually outrun shit. Been using along Char-Y for years, and the solid Speed and Rough Skin is great. Life Orb adds a lot of formerly failed KO's, but can also run a variety of items including AV, Lum Berry, and Yache Berry, and I recently saw a very interesting team built around TTar + Tailwind + Mega Garchomp that was extremely deceptive, yet brutal. Shame his team couldn't handle WP Ice Punch + Hammer Arm Regirock in Sand, LOL.
9.5/10, extremely viable alternative to Landog. Make sure you use Landog for the correct reasons before dismissing Chompy.

That's off the top of my head. I'm sure there's somethnig painfully obvious I missed.
 
I think it's because we're in the middle of Battle Spot Premier League, and posting what Pokemon you use on cart may be giving away information to be scouted. It's a great thread idea, just awkward timing.
Fair enough! Didn't quite think that through, as I missed signups.

Really enjoyed reading ethan06's rundown and getting a feel for all sorts of both successful and uncessful stuff that gets tried in Singles over the course of a generation.

ethan06 said:
i hate this thing it never dies. used it once and it only ever died. i can't win with legendary electrics ;(
Zapdos is a cool bird.
 
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