Non-Pokébank OU Shift Gear Magearna (Peaked Top 500, 1570+)

[MatthewMallory]

Hey guys, so I've been testing out lots of pre-bank teams since I think it's pretty fun right now (at least until January) and I've been wanting to try Shift Gear Magearna, so this is the team I came up with. I am currently at the top 500 with 1570, but I haven't dropped yet and am still laddering. Any help would be great.

Proof of peak:

Playboy (Magearna-Original) @ Steelium Z
Ability: Soul-Heart
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Shift Gear
- Aura Sphere
- Thunderbolt
- Flash Cannon

Shift Gear Magerna is an absolute beast in pre-bank. With shift gear it guarantees to outspeed the entire uninvested tier. I honestly feel like it needs no fairy STAB, especially considering Fleur Cannon drops SpA -2 when you're trying to sweep. Aura Sphere lures in Magnezone and can easily 2HKO (and its HP Fire/Tbolt do shit), Thunderbolt is for Toxapex and any birds, and flash cannon with steelium z takes out just about anything that would otherwise resist your moves and you desperately need the Soul-Heart boost.

Switch-In (Tapu Lele) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Psychic Surge
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 30 SpA / 30 Spe
- Psychic
- Moonblast
- Shadow Ball
- Hidden Power [Fire]

Scarfed Tapu Lele in my opinion is far superior to Specs. It hits hard enough with terrain-boosted Psychic (which does STAB + Terrain = 2.25x the power). It can nuke dark types with Moonblast, and then shadow ball (ghost types) and HP Fire (Scizor, Ferro) are just for coverage. Honestly with Aegislash banned from OU, you can probably run T-bolt over shadow ball.

Garbage (Muk-Alola) @ Assault Vest
Ability: Poison Touch
EVs: 252 HP / 212 Atk / 44 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Knock Off
- Poison Jab
- Stone Edge
- Shadow Sneak

This thing eats up special attacks for days. It is a solid switch in to Tapu Lele and Koko. Poison Jab murders the tapus, and it has a 30% chance to poison alongside a 30% chance from Poison Touch, so it almost always guarantees a poison, which is absolutely amazing. Sadly I can't run pursuit since it isn't legal pre-bank, but stone edge has some niche coverage.

Mega Karp (Gyarados) @ Gyaradosite
Ability: Intimidate
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Waterfall
- Crunch
- Earthquake

This thing beats like half of the damn pre-bank tier. It's your average gen 6 set, with D-Dance + 3 attacks. Mold Breaker eats right through Mimikyu's disguise, and a +1 crunch OHKO's it. The mind games that you can play with Intimidate/not mega-evolving is so good as well, since it can beat Phero/Buzzwole without mega evolving and then mega when a Lele/Necrozma comes out.

Marowak-Alola @ Thick Club
Ability: Lightning Rod
EVs: 248 HP / 4 Atk / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
- Flare Blitz
- Shadow Bone
- Earthquake
- Will-O-Wisp

I love A-Marowak in pre-bank meta; it absolutely walls Magnezone, Magearna, Tapu Koko, Tapu Bulu, etc. Its three coverage moves go super well with Thick Club, and will-o-wisp can cover for its uninvested defense. There isn't really much else to say about this thing.. maybe you can run lefties>thick club or fire punch>blitz for extra HP.

Necrozma @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Prism Armor
EVs: 252 HP / 240 Def / 4 SpA / 12 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Psychic
- Moonlight
- Thunder Wave
- Stealth Rock

Necrozma is the ultimate utility mon in pre-bank meta. UB-07 here absolutely walls physical mons and can stall them with helmet damage and moonlight. The 12 speed is to guaranteed outspeed uninvested Buzzwole and OHKO with psychic. T-wave is to outspeed and get off a moonlight if necessary, and rocks are rocks. It is a pretty good lead overall, but gets pretty walled by dark types as its only hope is that it can t-wave into Rocky Helmet damage/Moonlight.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

Threats to Team

1. Alolan-Marowak

This damn Pokémon. The thing is, I can switch into Gyarados and get an intimidate to ensure that it doesn't hit hard, but if it reads that and clicks will-o-wisp my Gyarados is basically dead. If I think it will attack, I can switch into it, but I have to predict the will-o and usually go Necrozma who, with Max Def/Prism Armor/Rocky Helmet, can take Shadow Bones and recover stall it.

4 Atk Thick Club Marowak-Alola Shadow Bone vs. 252 HP / 240+ Def Prism Armor Necrozma: 166-198 (41.7 - 49.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

A max roll does less than Moonlight recovers^

2. Zygarde-50% or Zygarde-10%

This thing can basically spam Thousand Arrows against my team; 1/2 of my team is weak to the move, and Necrozma can't stall it out since it doesn't make any contact. I can go Necrozma, but obviously I can't T-wave this thing and I don't even think Psychic will break its sub if it has enough SpDef investment. I really think I should replace Necrozma with something that takes both these threats down.

Team Import

Playboy (Magearna-Original) @ Steelium Z
Ability: Soul-Heart
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Shift Gear
- Aura Sphere
- Thunderbolt
- Flash Cannon

Switch-In (Tapu Lele) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Psychic Surge
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 30 SpA / 30 Spe
- Psychic
- Moonblast
- Shadow Ball
- Hidden Power [Fire]

Garbage (Muk-Alola) @ Assault Vest
Ability: Poison Touch
EVs: 252 HP / 212 Atk / 44 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Knock Off
- Poison Jab
- Stone Edge
- Shadow Sneak

Mega Karp (Gyarados) @ Gyaradosite
Ability: Intimidate
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Waterfall
- Crunch
- Earthquake

Marowak-Alola @ Thick Club
Ability: Lightning Rod
EVs: 248 HP / 4 Atk / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
- Flare Blitz
- Shadow Bone
- Earthquake
- Will-O-Wisp

Necrozma @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Prism Armor
EVs: 252 HP / 240 Def / 4 SpA / 12 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Psychic
- Moonlight
- Thunder Wave
- Stealth Rock

 

[A1 Scrub]

Nice looking team! i'll try it out and give you some feedback

 

[streams]

Nice team my dude. I love the idea of a set up sweeping magearna, and with the mons available in prebank tier, once you have a +1 just about nothing can stop it. To help me rate, can you give me the issues with the team you have found? Like what mons give you issues, etc. Thanks. Also for future posts, use the hide command to make it easier to import (instructions below).

hide command

To make a pull down thing like this simply open a bracket [ and type HIDE=(your title goes here) and then close the ]. After putting your info in, open another [ and type /HIDE and then close it ].

 

[MatthewMallory]

Nice team my dude. I love the idea of a set up sweeping magearna, and with the mons available in prebank tier, once you have a +1 just about nothing can stop it. To help me rate, can you give me the issues with the team you have found? Like what mons give you issues, etc. Thanks. Also for future posts, use the hide command to make it easier to import (instructions below).

hide command

To make a pull down thing like this simply open a bracket [ and type HIDE=(your title goes here) and then close the ]. After putting your info in, open another [ and type /HIDE and then close it ].

Cool, thanks for the help on the pull-tabs. I'll put what threats I think there are right now and an import :)

 

[streams]

Sorry I havent responded until now. For some reason I didn't get an email about you responding, however now that I am here I can give you your rate =).

As for Alolan-Marowak, there is no easy change in the team I can do to give you a counter to it, however we can optimize a set to help you out in predicting it. So what I would do it instead of putting 4 attack on your own marowak, put 8 into speed. This will give you a good will-o switch in which is really what you were lacking. Now with a will-o switch in that outspeeds and can kill it along side gyara and necrozma, playing around it should be much easier.

Calcs with 0 attack

0 Atk Thick Club Marowak-Alola Shadow Bone vs. 248 HP / 0 Def Marowak-Alola: 282-332 (87.3 - 102.7%) -- 18.8% chance to OHKO

With this you can see with some chip, your own maro can kill an opposing one. And if the opposing one is offensive, than Gyara will be able to beat it regardless given it most likely doesnt have will-o

Your zygarde problem is a little more complicated to solve. While there is an easy replacement in tapu fini > Necrozma, this would remove your stealth rocker which I do not think is worth it. Instead, you are going to have to pressure it offensively with tapu lele and gyarados. Tapu lele will outspeed even if it gets +1 and will easily ohko it. Really your way of beating zygarde is offensively.

Good luck with the changes dude. Feel free to hmu on the forums, or on ps! (same name, and you can find me in rmt room).

 

[Anish]

To add on to what streams said, I believe a spread of 248 HP / 96 Atk / 92 Def / 72 Spe with an Impish Nature may be slightly better to creep -Spe Celesteela and Marowak creeping Celesteela. This spread also invests in Defense for Pheromosa and you do not need the SpD as you have multiple ways to deal with Tapu Koko in Alolan Muk and Alolan Marowak, and even with Scarf Lele soft checking it, so there is a very tiny chance that he will click Thunderbolt predicting Alolan Wak on your team, making it easy to go into Alolan Muk and the Attack investment helps pressure Tapu Fini and 2HKO Toxapex to which you do not have switch ins to.

Sorry for not having more changes but I'm pretty foreign to the metagame, however I know that this Pokebank spread deals with PreBank Pokémon, and sorry for the poor formatting , I'm on phone.

 

[MatthewMallory]

To add on to what streams said, I believe a spread of 248 HP / 96 Atk / 92 Def / 72 Spe with an Impish Nature may be slightly better to creep -Spe Celesteela and Marowak creeping Celesteela. This spread also invests in Defense for Pheromosa and you do not need the SpD as you have multiple ways to deal with Tapu Koko in Alolan Muk and Alolan Marowak, and even with Scarf Lele soft checking it, so there is a very tiny chance that he will click Thunderbolt predicting Alolan Wak on your team, making it easy to go into Alolan Muk and the Attack investment helps pressure Tapu Fini and 2HKO Toxapex to which you do not have switch ins to.

Sorry for not having more changes but I'm pretty foreign to the metagame, however I know that this Pokebank spread deals with PreBank Pokémon, and sorry for the poor formatting , I'm on phone.

Thanks for the help, sounds good :)

 

[MatthewMallory]

Sorry I havent responded until now. For some reason I didn't get an email about you responding, however now that I am here I can give you your rate =).

As for Alolan-Marowak, there is no easy change in the team I can do to give you a counter to it, however we can optimize a set to help you out in predicting it. So what I would do it instead of putting 4 attack on your own marowak, put 8 into speed. This will give you a good will-o switch in which is really what you were lacking. Now with a will-o switch in that outspeeds and can kill it along side gyara and necrozma, playing around it should be much easier.

Calcs with 0 attack

0 Atk Thick Club Marowak-Alola Shadow Bone vs. 248 HP / 0 Def Marowak-Alola: 282-332 (87.3 - 102.7%) -- 18.8% chance to OHKO

With this you can see with some chip, your own maro can kill an opposing one. And if the opposing one is offensive, than Gyara will be able to beat it regardless given it most likely doesnt have will-o

Your zygarde problem is a little more complicated to solve. While there is an easy replacement in tapu fini > Necrozma, this would remove your stealth rocker which I do not think is worth it. Instead, you are going to have to pressure it offensively with tapu lele and gyarados. Tapu lele will outspeed even if it gets +1 and will easily ohko it. Really your way of beating zygarde is offensively.

Good luck with the changes dude. Feel free to hmu on the forums, or on ps! (same name, and you can find me in rmt room).

Yeah, that's a good idea for dealing with Wak. Thanks man, I'll def try to see you on PS :)