Jungle Cup Climbing with Double-Swine
I haven’t had a ton of fun with the limited metas this season with the exception of this one, and wanted to share my team before it disappears. I built it for the first run of Jungle Cup when I saw how dominant Ice would theoretically be in this meta and wondered if a double Mamo/Piloswine team would be as cracked as it seemed like it would be. And honestly I think it is — using it this week (not even full sets for the first few days) I went from ~2100 to 2450 after sets today. Idk if I’ll actually manage to hit Vet with this iteration but I think a more skilled player absolutely could.
The original team:
Shadow Mamoswine (15-14-8, rk 1020)
PS + IS/SE
The attack weighting was basically a happy accident; it was the only one I had that actually still has a decent ranking (about 75th percentile, by hitting 1496 CP), but it means I basically always win alignment over other Mamo/Pilo leads, and even resisted Icicle Spears often need to be shielded.
Altaria (3-9-12, rk 185)
DB + SA/Ft
Altaria seemed to be the best option for something that would cover the double-swines’ weaknesses, and it worked really well in low ace where I started. Struggled a bit more once some hard counters got more common at higher ELOs.
Piloswine (2-14-14, rk 35)
PS + IS/HH
Running High Horsepower instead of Stone Edge trades a very small number of losses (basically just the couple of bugs running around that Mamo/Altaria can usually deal with) for the ability to nuke Lanturn, which was an early corebreaker I noticed, better threaten Forretress, and in general just get a higher-power STAB nuke than Icicle Spears allows.
This iteration of the team seemed to plateau (for me) around the mid-2300s. Altaria was a little too slow to effectively threaten several mons I was having trouble with. But I had an idea this week to swap to Togekiss, and that has been kind of amazing. Specific team comps, specifically multiples of Talonflame, Greninja, and Quag are trouble, but even then sometimes I can work my way around them if I get lucky with alignment. The biggest benefit of this team is how fast it charges; every mon has a 10-turn charged move, and TK has two.
New addition:
Togekiss (4-14-15, rk 39)
Peck + PS/AS
The fast charging of Psyshock/Aura Sphere makes a ton of difference vs. Altaria (both 10 turns vs. 13 for Sky Attack, 15 for Flamethrower), and also does a way better job of threatening bulky normals that enjoyed switching into the Swines. Threatens Talonflame better in practice and doesn’t sacrifice most of the things Altaria countered, though Greninja became much more annoying (though depending on alignment Aura Sphere is basically a guaranteed kill).
I would say I win lead 60% of the time (Togekiss, Stunfisk, Altaria, Dragonite, G-Weez, a few other common ones), and winning lead with this team is huge because if I trade shields with Mamo, they’ll usually feel comfortable swapping into Togekiss, which gives second Swine a farm opportunity. If you have the means and want to try this out before the cup ends, I’d love to hear how it goes.