u/LY4K4YL

This team was extremely fun. It is designed to be counter-meta and have luxurious hair. Everything is slow with extra bulk.

Wide Guard Araquanid stops spread moves and liquidation chips everything for heavy damage, even those with water resists like Basculegion. Water bubble prevents burns from mega scovillain & dogs fire types. Soak is for threats that resist parabolic charge, like Mega Aggron or Mega Venusaur. Wide Guard protects your own team from Parabolic Charge, but still has it hit the enemy team.

Itemless, Defiant Passimian gets a ATK boost from intimidate users, parting shot, charm, and icy wind, etc. With extra EV bulk, drain punk OHKOs many pokemon weak to it at +1, and the threats it wants to hit are quad-weak anyway (Tyranitar, Kinggambit). No Close Combat to stick on the field if they don't have an answer to drain punch. Acrobatics OHKOs sneasler. Gunk Shot is for Mega Floette - its the only coverage I had for this match up and the melon monkey clutched it out multiple times. Outspeeds an uninvested Incin outside trick room and is slower than a speed invested Incin in trick room.

Tsareena is for Queenly Majesty to get trick room up against fake out. Most of the time Tsareena is in the back with Araquanid in the front. If they have spread moves I click Araquanid wide guard, if I see prio, then I switch in Tsareena on turn 1 for Queenly Majesty to stop all fake outs/sucker punch/etc for free trick room. Power whip for basculegion, rotom wash, milotic, and anything hit by soak. High Jump Kick is always horrifying to use as it crashes out on protect but feels sick as hell when it lands. Triple Axel for garchomp, mega dragonite - it also OHKOs sash Aerodactyl and Whimsicott.

Gardevoir sets trick room with focus sash. Moonblasts if you ignore it. Psychic + focus sash is for Sneasler & Mega-Venusaur. Hilariously, Telepathy only works when Ampharos is not in mega, because it has Mold Breaker. Its a shockingly safe switch into most special attackers.

Mega-Ampharos usually comes in with 1-2 turns left on trick room. If they are stalling Trick Room out, you can click cotton guard in trick room for the +3 def before attacks. Against most meta teams, you win with the +3 defense boost and parabolic charge spam even if trick room goes down. Most other threats (Charizard Y, Chandelure, Spread Spammers) are checked by the leads. You can also intentionally damage your own pokemon to heal HP, as most tank it well, and Araquanid can both wide guard for the self-protect + enemy spread protect, or be an HP battery if you need it as in trick room it can attack or soak before Mega-Ampharos then die to parabolic charge.

Sinistcha was benched, as the fairy coverage from Gardevoir was almost always better than the redirection, but did come for games where the enemy only had physical attackers to reset trick room with hospitality for end-game Mega Ampharos.