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 (: