Fletchling Mono-Normal Team

Hey everyone, here's the mono-normal team I used to in the GC this weekend. Originally my plan was to just use the team in an online community tournament, but while I was working on it I realized it was actually pretty strong so I decided to enter the harder GC instead.

Pokepaste: https://pokepast.es/866ebd5076be8dc4

Team Building Explanation:

I was interested in doing a monotype challenge for content, and I'd been thinking about which type to go with for awhile. While Regulation G might seem like a weird format for this type of challenge because the Pokemon are so strong, there's actually a lot of good Normal types right now - Terapagos in particular stands out because it's a Pokemon that can't be resisted, making it valuable in a monotype challenge.

I quickly identified some other candidates - I knew I'd need one of the Ursalunas, and probably a Psychic/Normal type of either Indeedee or Farigiraf (initially I had both). Ditto stood out as it's a normal type that changes type, and Smeargle also caught my eye as its typing doesn't really matter. I was especially interested in the combination of Smeargle and Specs Terapagos - I wasn't interested at all in Calm Mind Terapagos, and as Timid Smeargle is a few points above Modest Terapagos, you're able to Decorate before you launch Tera Starstorm.

As I tested the team more, it became clear that my main four Pokemon were Terapagos, Smeargle, Indeedee, and Ditto. I would most games attempt to use double follow me to protect Terapagos, and use Ditto to try and steal their restricted for a second wave of damage. Ursaluna was useful in a few matchups, but I found myself bringing it less often as it's difficult to get trick room set up, and I had min speed Ursaluna at the time. However, I found myself struggling against teams with good speed control, as Terapagos couldn't protect itself and trick room was unreliable. I started looking for a way to get Tailwind up, and eventually discovered that Fletchling is a Normal/Flying type with Gale Wings - unlike its evolutions which are Fire/Flying. With Eviolite, Fletchling is actually able to survive Surging Strikes, so I added it to the team and was shocked that it helped a ton in the specific situations I needed it in.

Obviously, this team is silly - it's all normal types with Fletchling. But I do think there are ideas here that are very strong, and you could take parts of this team and iterate on them if you wanted.

Individual Sets Explanation:

Terapagos: The restricted Pokemon, the main goal of the team is to enable Terapagos to rip through opponents with Tera Starstorm. Terapagos has good natural bulk, so I maxed out speed and special attack as these stats are a little less impressive. Most of the time you're clicking tera starstorm, but earth power is nice for Miraidon/Iron Hands/Incineroar, and Hyper Beam one shots Ice Rider which felt valuable. I never used Flamethrower, it should have been something else.

Smeargle: Focus Sash is mandatory as Smeargles stats are actually worse than Fletchlings. I chose Grass tera because with Indeedee on the team I didn't think I needed ghost for protection from Fake Out, and Grass tera not only allows Smeargle to not get one shot by Urshifu, but also to ignore Amoonguss. The main question was the moves, as Smeargle learns every move in the game. Decorate was a core part of the strategy, so that was set. I think Follow Me is the next most important move, as it helps keep Terapagos safe. I felt like I needed Spore in order to allow Smeargle to be a threat independent of its partners, and to take advantage of good Moody boosts - which just left the last move. I decided to use Fake Out as I thought it was stronger in best of 1 closed team sheet, but I really wanted Wide Guard at times too. Max Speed to outspeed Terapagos, max HP to stay alive if you get a good moody boost.

Indeedee: More or less a standard set - I spent my testing using rocky helmet, but changed to Mental Herb at the last second because I was worried about certain taunt Flutter Mane sets. In hindsight, I should have stuck with Helmet and Relaxed nature. Trained for general survivability, I went sassy because I was worried about flutter and chi-yu lead together (same reasoning for Tera Fire), who otherwise just destroy my entire team. Follow Me mandatory, Trick Room good against faster teams, Helping Hand super valuable to boost Terapagos or Ursaluna to stupid levels, and Psychic as the strongest damaging option it has to ensure I can still be a threat/break focus sashes.

Ursaluna-Bloodmoon: Standard moves, item, and tera type. General idea is to use Ursaluna to be a huge damage threat thanks to the power of blood moon and the multiplicative scaling of Life Orb, STAB, and Tera Normal. Hyper Voice is a great secondary attack, and Earth Power is useful in the current format generally, as is Ursalunas Ground typing making it immune to electric attacks (though in practice this is less useful than you might expect). I decided to use Ursaluna at max speed, because I was having no success consistently getting trick room up, and max speed would allow it to synergize better with Fletchlings tailwind.

Ditto: No real explanation needed, max HP because your HP stat stays the same when transformed, max speed in case you need to manually transform when Imposter fails. Ghost Tera lets you turn immune to fake out when you transform, and also can be used offensively when copying Shadow Rider.

Fletchling: Initially I wasn't sure how to use Fletchling because it's really here primarily to use Tailwind. I would have given it focus sash, except that Smeargle has that. I settled on Eviolite, as it's possible for it to survive Surging Strikes with it which I wasn't expecting. Speed is maxed out for the ability to Tailwind before Grassy Glide or other priority moves break the Gale Wings. Protect felt needed because Gale Wings only works at full HP, Tailwind is the main purpose of the set, and I decided to use Air Slash so that Fletchling could still do a little damage, due to Air Slash's massive 30% flinch chance. The last move I chose was Taunt, as it's a really high impact move. I considered Featherdance, but many physical attackers have clear amulet, and quick guard seemed like a waste with psychic terrain. I went with tera dark as I thought I could play around Fake Out easier than I could play around prankster taunt.

Changes I would suggest:
If you use this team, I'd change Terapagos to Sleep Talk over Flamethrower, and Indeedee to Rocky Helmet with a defense boosting nature rather than Mental Herb Sassy. Fletchling should probably be Tera Ghost even though you never really want to terastalize it.

Anyway that's the team, hope you enjoyed watching the streams this weekend!