Team Builder

Aerodactyl is a pokemon I tried desperately to avoid using if only for the fact that I dont like him very much as a pokemon. HOWEVER, hes too damn good to pass up. Having tailwind and wide guard at high speed for non prankster taunt is just obscenely powerful. Though, I will admit, Im definitely still considering Ice Fang for more help with Garchomp but I cant bring myself to swap out Rock Slide just yet and Taunt feels necessary against Trick Room/Prankster setups.

The Mega Stone is for the off chance that I dont want to bring Lucario to the field, Mega Aero is pretty good.

Max speed, max HP on this Aero just because we have so many support moves. If I ever decide on Ice Fang over Taunt itll go to Max Atk instead

Incineroar is one of the best support pokemon of all time. This is undisputed. He is especially good here because of his slow parting shot allowing us to reposition after the opponent shows their hand. Fake Out pressure is always good as well.

Now for the elephant in the room: Helping Hand in place of a dark type move. There are some 'mons that Lucario and Basculegion need a bit of help OHKO'ing, especially through Light Screen and Reflect, hence the need for Helping Hand on at least one member of the team. The decision to put this in place of a dark type move is also partly why we have Taunt on Aerodactyl.

Flare Blitz is the reason why we have the EV spread we do. If an opposing Venusaur has anything less than 187 HP and 128 Def then it OHKOs 100% of the time. Additionally, Mega Froslass in the snow with Aurora Veil takes a minimum of 80% from the move if theyre uninvested in bulk allowing for moves like Flip Turn and Volt Switch to pick up the slack. For reference, thats the same damage as Mega Lucario's Meteor Mash but with 100% accuracy.

Even with all that, its bulk is still respectable enough to survive some big hits and heal 25% with Sitrus Berry

Basculegion is here to be our secondary sweeper. Ive oscillated between the choice scarf and Life Orb for many reasons but ultimately settled on Scarf for the Sneasler matchup (also the reason I added psychic fangs). Basculegion with 32 speed EVs and the choice scarf gets to 195 speed, 6 points higher than max speed Sneasler. In tailwind Basc will outspeed Sneasler with Unburden, which is noteable for a dozen reasons.

Flip turn is noteable here for the ability to quickly pivot into a more defensive 'mon like Incin or Meowstic, which also resets Fake Out pressure and can help us recover from a bad lead.

Ideally, an endgame scenario involves Basc coming out after Lucario has knocked out most of the opponents major players like Sylveon or Kingambit

Meowstic is here to supply two of the forms of terrain we need. Honestly, the terrains by themselves leave something to be desired. If you dont position well and youre even slightly inefficient with your play spending a turn on setting up a terrain can feel like leaving a gap in your defenses. However, on this team, with all the positioning capability on team I think Meowstic can perform better than it seems capable of at first glance.

Lets talk about Fake Out. I wanted two forms of fake out, but Sneasler always has control in a standoff between fake out users and I didnt want to include Sneasler in this lineup so I put it on Meowstic. This doesnt always feel great. Sometimes you want to use fake out and a terrain at the same time and that decision is always awkward. However, with the addition of as many switching moves as we have (Parting Shot, Flip Turn, and Volt Switch) this feels less awkward because we dont have to preemptively switch into a potential double up or super effective move or some such other.

We include Psychic just for Meowstic to have a damaging move, but this is not the end all be all. Its always preferable to have STAB but the move itself can depend on whatever niche you might want to fill.

Jolteon is something of an experiment here. No matter what, for Terrain Pulse to work as an anti Charizard tech the Electric Terrain has to be set before Lucario goes for the attack. Therefore, the terrain setter in question must be faster than Lucario. Thats not easy. The only qualifiers are Heliolisk, the Raichus, and Jolteon. I didnt want Heliolisk because it lacks some support I wanted and adds some weaknesses, and the Raichus seemed like they had too much going on between damaging moves, the terrain, and potentially using fake out.

Jolteon outspeeds 90 percent of the format. In fact, there are only 9 pokemon that outspeed it and only 3 which speed tie it, this allows us to have a pretty reliable secondary form of speed control in Electroweb. Electroweb swings the tempo in our favor in matchups where Lucario gets outsped, even an opposing tailwind isnt a sure answer to this given a tailwind of our own

Volt Switch is, in my mind, a necessity. We want to preserve Jolteons focus sash as long as possible so we can maintain our secondary speed control as our opponent switches in and out. Because of how fast it is its able to switch into play before the opponent goes for a move, which can be good, bad, ugly, or otherwise depending on what the opponent does

And thats the team! Its a passion project of mine and Id be greatly appreciative of any feedback. I really do believe in this idea and I think theres something special here, it just needs refining and perfecting. This tempo focused meta breaker is only just getting started!