[reupload due to broken image on first post]
A couple of people asked for my Bastiodon team from my clip from the other day. It’s flawed, but this is what I have so far.
Bastiodon is the core of the team, my strategy is to have faith in his +6 defence bulkyness and ability to slowly wear down the opponent while only taking chip damage. I’ve had several matches where a fully setup Bastiodon has 1v4ed the entire enemy team. I chose Bastiodon over Mega Aggron due to its much higher special defence and ability to hold leftovers. As Bastiodon has no ability to improve its special defence I’ve maxed that out. Wherever possible, I have given the rest of my team moves that lower special attack to help him stay alive.
Bastiodons greatest weakness is fighting and ground moves, which can one shot even at +6, or nearly always in the special side (though he will often survive against non-specialised physical attackers) I mitigate this through two strategies:
First, I can simply turn him into a bulky water with soak, there doesn’t seem to be many grass type or electric types in the current meta. Regardless, 2 2x weaknesses is nearly always preferable to 2 4x weaknesses.
Second is Sableeye, who can use fakeout on the non-fighting or ground attacker while Bastiodon protects turn one, and disable on the super-effective user turn two. This regularly shuts down both garchomp and sneasler (who seems to especially want that Close Combat crack), skipping fake out to get that hit in. Quash is also my poor man’s trick room allowing Bastiodon to get a 4x body press in on a potential lethal threat.
Next is Mega Clefable, while Sinistcha would initially seem like the better choice, Clefable provides valuable redirection, quadruple resisting Bastiodons 4x fighting weakness with immunity to ground while also resisting grass while in water mode. Skill swapping Magic Bounce deflects hypnosis, hard shuting down Milotic and Ninetails, which previously caused me significant difficulty. Magic guard can also helps me if Bastiodon is already burnt, seeded, or has another damaging status.
Mega Lopunny helps Bastiodon hit ghosts, using entrainment, and quickly dispatches some key threats. if I’m going up against a team focused on contact moves, sometimes I forego Mega evolving and give Bastiodon Cute Charm, which definitely slows down the opposing team. I’m considering swapping to a female Bastiodon for wider coverage. I’ve found Lopunny to have very little staying power and feel like I can simply make ghosts hittable using soak. Alternatively, Pangoro also gets Scrappy and Entrainment which would prevent me from immediately losing my mega.
Basculegion is my late game clean up crew, sometime cleaning up after I’ve lost Bastiodon and turning near losses into victories. Soak is a little awkward to use with choice scarf, but it can open up some ghost types to a neutral body press hit.
Araquanid also provides soak support as well as wide guard for double spread pairs. I'm considering trading her away for a trick room user.
With this team I managed a rating of just over 1600, but lost a significant amount of positions from a bad losing streak where everyone seemed to shut down my team with hypnosis (hence Clefables addition).
I have two main areas I think this team can improve:
Sand would drastically improve Bastiodons special bulk, Though I am wary of having Tyranitar, as that would leave two 4x fighting weaknesses standing side by side.
Trick room would be nice to remove threats before they can attack. This team has practically no speed control outside of quash.
I’d love any suggestions on how I could turn this team to be a bigger threat