Sample New Moon Teams + New Moon Pokes Tier List

The New Moon weather condition is by far the most interesting addition to battling in Pokemon Insurgence, at least in my opinion and during my first playthrough of the game I mostly ignored it. After picking Delta Bulbasaur as my starter I decided I had no reason to think twice about it. However, since my second playthrough where I chose Delta Charmander, like many other people did for their first, I came to love using New Moon as a part of my teams and every playthrough since I’ve been using New Moon builds to play through the story and the post game. So here are some of the best and most interesting teams I came up with that utilize the New Moon mechanic to the fullest:

My In-game playthrough team which I have been using from the elite 4. Delta Volcarona was previously Primal Giratina but after beating the elite 4 the first time I decided to stop using legendaries in favour of more interesting teambuilding. The team mostly relies on setting hazards, getting OHKO’s with the hard hitters like Mega Gengar and Greninja before going for the final sweep with Delta Scyther. This was the team I used when facing the elite 4 rematches and I didn’t have any trouble at all.
https://pokepast.es/2e7d1cd1ce6dae78

Literally the same team as before but with Mega Gengar swapped for Mega Hydreigon. Technically Hydreigon is the better option for a mega since Greninja and Scyther are usually fast enough to manage, but for some reason I just preferred using Mega Gengar in my own playthrough. This team will do the exact same as the previous one but with slightly more flexability and you can use Flamethrower instead of U-Turn if you want more coverage.
https://pokepast.es/5c344c450efc5abd

The same new moon team core as the previous teams but with the physical Hone Claws sweeper replaced with Quiver Dance setup and Baton Pass. Other than Spiritomb and Clefable, all the team members use only Special attacks so Quiver Dance could theoretically be passed to any of them but it will obviously work best with its intented target, Mega Delta Blastoise although it’s also effective with Mega Hydreigon and Mega Delta Pidgeot.
https://pokepast.es/05dd3469a8ff0ccf

This team focuses more on sand than on darkness, using the darkness set up by Mega Delta Charizard as a supporting aspect rather than a central one. The darkness allows Blaziken better setup with Hone Claws and Bisharp stronger priority as well as the power boost to Charizard itself, but the primary core of the team revolves around passing boosts from Blaziken to Garchomp and sweeping with overwhelming physical power. Tyranitar and Excadrill provide excellent support for both Garchomp and Bisharp/Charizard with hazard removal, speed control and Pursuit trapping although unfortunately Pursuit itself won’t be boosted by the darkness as Tyranitar sets sand upon switch-in.
https://pokepast.es/681e90dce2bbd72f

A variation on the last team with the same sweep set-up with Mega Garchomp instead of regular Garchomp but darkness is the central aspect of this team and sand has been entirely removed. Delta Roserade is loved by most people who use darkness and on this build you get to use both of its playstyles in the same team, you’ll need to trade or use Delta Ditto in order to obtain 2 of them but as stupid as it might look at first glance it actually works quite well, Blaziken only really needs 1 turn of darkness in order to set-up and Garchomp doesn’t need darkness to sweep it just appreciates the defense against Fairy type moves and with screens from Lunatone most of your pokemon will be untouchable with anything but super effective moves. (Dark Rock can be given to Delta Roserade if preferred in which case Lunatone can afford to run Light Clay)
https://pokepast.es/25961e98580e19dd

The only good New Moon team I could come up with that utilized Mega Delta Charizard, I honestly don’t like Delta Charizard very much as a darkness setter, its speed tier is somewhat average and its defenses are lacking which make it very susceptible to being one shot before it can even get off an attack, added to the fact that the weather it sets can’t be boosted by Dark Rock for extra turns, I find Mega Delta Charizard quite hard to use. However using a more defensive style team with 2 darkness setters instead of 1 helps to make up for its downfalls, just remember to switch into one of your walls whenever Charizard is threatened.
https://pokepast.es/5fb9023e6cc14a79

Another duplicate team, this one with Spiritomb swapped for Klefki. For those who’d prefer to have screens down before setting up with Delta Scyther or hazard stacking and stalling with Clefable and Delta Volcarona. Thunder Wave can be swapped for Foul Play if you want at least some damage potential with Klefki but I personally find Thunder Wave more useful for crippling pokemon that threaten your sweepers and helping Delta Charizard outspeed more of its counters. However the lack of a second darkness setter or Dark Rock means darkness will be up alot less often and it becomes much harder to take advantage of all of its benefits.
https://pokepast.es/6fe748fae3337087

A hyper offense team that works well for ingame playthroughs, especially on switch mode. For those that don’t trade and don’t have access to Delta Electivire you can use Delta Roserade as a Shadow Dance user, which can be caught in Utira Library at around the midpoint of the game. Because the team is so offense oriented you can use pretty much any of the Mega pokemon that pair well with darkness like Bisharp, Gengar, Delta Blastoise, Delta Charizard, Delta Pidgeot or even Zoroark. The low BST of most team members will mean they start to fall off heading into the lategame so consider switching some team members to closer fit my previous teams if you’re stuggling ingame. (note that Delta Ambipom will also perform better with Fake Out and its choice item removed during playthroughs)
https://pokepast.es/d4d502f3da27e8e6

And finally for those who prefer building their own teams, I’ll leave a tier list of all the pokemon I could think of that would work especially well on New Moon teams. Feel free to leave any pokemon I missed in the comments and I’ll consider adding them as well (Not including legendary pokemon):

S-Tier
Clefable
Spiritomb
Greninja
Delta Volcarona

A-Tier
Gengar
Garchomp
Bisharp
Hydreigon
Delta Scyther
Delta Charizard
Delta Blastoise

B-Tier
Weavile
Blaziken
Klefki
Chandelure
Aegislash
Delta Ambipom
Delta Roserade
Delta Electivire
Delta Pidgeot
Delta Milotic

C-Tier
Starmie
Lunatone
Umbreon
Houndoom
Tyranitar
Scolipede
Krookodile
Zoroark
Delta Arcanine
Delta Darmanitan
Delta Scizor
Delta Emolga

D-Tier
Venomoth
Volbeat
Sableye
Drapion
Shedinja
Honchkrow
Froslass
Mienshao
Scrafty
Pangoro
Delta Kabutops
Delta Liepard
Delta Blaziken

You forgot about mega D. Typhlosion - It may not be a dark or ghost type, but its signature ability supercell activates in new moon as well as in rain. I think it’s a pretty high tier mon for that reason.

I’m gonna suggest Delta Roserade, Choice Specs or even Black Glasses Lunar Cannon destroys. Mega D. Typhlosion is another good piece, as is Delta Arcanine, who appreciates the removal of Ghosts. I personally like the core of those 3. Another amazing piece is Choice Scarf D. Darmanitan, near nothing eats Phantom Force/Knock Off well under New Moon.

Roserade and Darmanitan are already on the list, Delta Typhlosion does technically get a power boost from New Moon and it’s definitely useable but I haven’t added it because if you’re going to use Delta Typhlosion on a weather team then it has to be rain, perfect accuracy thunder and weakened fire type moves make it so much better on rain than in darkness, if i was going to put it on the list it would probably go in B-Tier.

I mean, they all need to move up tho. You underestimate the power of Swords Dance STAB ESpeed, as well as Moon boosted moves off of 140 Atk. Also Delta Rose is just as good as, if not better than D. Blastoise as a Shadow Dancer. In competitive, D. Rose is way better than D. Blastoise due to just being stronger.

None of these pokemon are neutered by darkness otherwise there would be no reason to mention them, everything in B tier is more reliable and more flexible than everything in C tier. This does not mean C tier pokemon are bad or shouldn’t be used, simply that they’re outperformed by the higher tier pokemon or have a lack of variety in movepool/sets.

To go more in depth on Delta Arcanine: It doesn’t really benefit at all from darkness, the only things it gains are a slight resistance to fairy moves and a boost to Crunch if you’re using it which most of the time you wont, and even if you did, would only be using it to counter ghost types which is wholly unecessary on a New Moon team. As for the fairy resistance, as you said Delta Arcanine likes to set up a Swords Dance and start bullying with Extreme Speed, which means you’ll be switching it in as a result of a lost pokemon or from a Baton Pass/U-Turn, if the pokemon on the other side of the field at that moment is a fairy type then you won’t be sending in Delta Arcanine, and once it’s set up, most fairy types will either be killed or force it out meaning you never see the benefits of darkness when you use Delta Arcanine, not a bad pokemon, but doesn’t thrive in the darkness like the higher tier pokemon do.

No, D. Arcanine doesn’t support Moon, moon supports it indirectly cuz most of the Moon abusers are very good at removing Ghost types. Once Ghost types are gone, D. Arcanine cleans house, and sacking is perfectly fine. Also, it can set up in front of Fairy types in the endgame once you get Multiscale. I think you seriously underestimate it. If you want to see what I mean, you should try battling my D. Arc Moon team.