Decade of Statues

Decade of Statues


Introduction:
This is a Generation 5 revamp of my Generation 4 team, Hearts Alive. I tried to keep the overall synergy of the old team while trying to tackle the new metagame. The goal remains unchanged: Lay down entry hazards, break down walls that otherwise are a huge detriment to my sweep, then sweep (derp).

I want to apologize in advance, as I've been out of the competitive battling circuit for a good while now and therefore only barely beginning to learn the new metagame. Any help would be appreciated. A few things had to be changed due to the fact that some Pokemon just can't do what I needed them to do anymore.


WEAKNESS
A.K.A. - TYPE CHART




DECADE OF STATUES
AT A GLANCE

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DECADE OF STATUES
A CLOSER LOOK


Tyranitar @ Lum Berry

Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 HP / 188 Atk / 68 SDef
Nature: Brave
Pursuit
Stealth Rock
Fire Blast
Crunch

I originally used Skarmory as my lead on my Hearts Alive team, but looking back now I can see that I'm basically sacrificing Skarmory by giving it a Lum Berry and not leftovers when using it as a lead.

Anyway, back to Tyranitar. I love this dude for many reasons. Right off the bat, we get Sand Stream in play. I find this extremely useful in my gameplan. Most of my team is immune to Sandstorm. Stealth Rocks are a must, as I'm all about entry hazards. They make things so much easier when setting up a sweep. Pursuit is another obvious one as it's pretty easy to predict when a switch is going to be made, especially when dealing with a lead. Crunch wrecks shit, and Fire Blast wrecks Nattorei and other steel types who think they are free to switch in.




Skarmory @ Leftovers

Ability: Sturdy
EVs: 252 HP / 200 Def / 56 SDef
Nature: Careful
Spikes
Roost
Whirlwind
Brave Bird

Skarmory is another key to the team's success. Not only is it extremely spongy, able to shrug off a plethora of attacks, but it is a great user of one of my favorite moves: Spikes! With spikes down, the opponent will have to rethink that crazy switching that commonly occurs in the metagame, and that's magnified when multiple layers of spikes (And hopefully Stealth Rock as well) are down. Roost is for longevity and Whirlwind is obviously for shuffling the team around to prevent stall and to spread that lovely entry hazard damage around. Brave Bird just so I'm not stuck without an attack.

The old version of Skarmory I ran was a lead version, which I really liked as it emplored taunt. Taunt really screwed over a lot of leads. However, like I mentioned earlier, I'm not sure which is a better fit.




Gengar @ Life Orb

Ability: Levitate
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Nature: Timid
Substitute
Pain Split
Shadow Ball
Focus Blast

Rotom-H losing it's Ghost Typing was one of the hugest blows this team took in transferring from Generation Four to Five. I didn't have a successful spinblocker anymore. I loved the bulkiness of Rotom, and I really liked Rest Talking and screwing with Will-O-Wisp. I needed someone to at least spin block for me.

That's where Gengar comes into play. Another great asset to my team and it's philosophy. Gengar is and always has been one of my favorite Pokemon since the beginning. Gengar does his job extremely well. He's an incredible offensive Spinblocker with great typing, giving it three immunities and allowing it to switch in on a variety of things. Keeping entry hazards on the field is huge for this team, as I like to force switches and get the opponent to help me out as much as possible.





Latios @ Choice Specs

Ability: Levitate
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Nature: Timid
Draco Meteor
Surf
Hidden Power [Fire]
Trick


To say this thing is anything less than sweet is a ridiculous understatement. This guy is a pro at getting switches. Choice specs-boosted Draco Meteor will be able to heavily dent even the Pokemon that resist it. Offensively, Surf compliments Draco Meteor coverage-wise. Hidden Power [Fire] is for steel types that think they are safe to switch into Latios and just shrug off the expected minimal damage. Trick is great for screwing with late-game stats boosters as well as with stallers and walls such as Chansey/Blissey, Nattorei, etc.

Lucario really appreciates this dude! both Latios and Latias resist all of Lucario's weaknesses while Lucario resists all of theirs. Latios can launch off Choice Specs boosted Draco Meteors to break holes in the opposing team to help set up for a Lucario sweep.





Garchomp @ Choice Scarf

Ability: Sand Veil
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Nature: Jolly
Outrage
Earthquake
Stone Edge
Dragon Claw

This here is one of my favorite pokemon. Words can't describe the havoc Choice Scarf Garchomp unleashes upon the opponent's team, especially later in the game. This dude tears open the opponent's defenses and in it's wake, allows me to set up a Lucario sweep. It has some of the best typing in the game, an immunity to sand stream, an overpowered ability, and the stats, etc. to be one of -the- top revenge killers in Generation Five. It also provides a very useful immunity to Thunder Wave, which a good number of my other Pokemon hate with a passion.

It revenges Blaziken after a speed boost, Tyranitar, and others with Earthquake. Outrage is rarely used, but has it's niche at certain times, especially in the middle of the game and/or dealing with Dragon Dance and/or Mixed Salamence, Dragonite, etc. After testing Fire Blast against Stone Edge, I found the latter more useful, so naturally I went with that.

I originally had Scarf Tyranitar on my Hearts Alive team, but after some testing I've discovered it's not the same beast it was before. Garchomp's 102 Base Speed is a big "lol i trol u" to many, and I always love a good trolling.






Lucario @ Life Orb

Ability: Inner Focus
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Nature: Adamant
Swords Dance
Close Combat
Extremespeed
Ice Punch


Ah, Lucario. One of my favorites since the beginning of Generation Four.

Unprepared teams fall to the sheer power of Lucario while even prepared teams can have difficulty if they falter. When I successfully stick to my plan and keep this dude for the later stages of the game, almost nothing can stop it.

Lucario and Latios go hand in hand. When a Tyranitar, Scizor, [Insert Pokemon that royally fucks Latios here] traps and kills Latios, Lucario steps in and is able to set up with incredible ease. With a single Swords Dance Boost, this guy goes from a beast to a one man wrecking crew. +2 Close Combat is a force to be reckoned with, while Extremespeed is generally used to kill off enemies with little health or to outspeed a pokemon that would normally be faster than Lucario.

I decided to go with Ice Punch as Gliscor, who would otherwise bring my Lucario sweep to a screeching halt. I rarely ever found myself using Crunch in a game situation in both Generation Four and Five (so far, for the latter at least), so it's the superior option.





DECADE OF STATUES
Conclusion

Well thanks for Rating My Team (or at least reading it). Please help me out as I'm still very new to this Metagame and such. The break has not been kind to me! Let me know if there's anything I should add/remove/etc. There's also some possible replacements down below.


POSSIBLE REPLACEMENTS




Possible Replacements:
Feel free to make suggestions as to whether I should implement one or more of these :)


Celebi @ Leftovers

Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 HP / 96 Def / 124 SpDef / 36 Spe
Nature: Bold
Giga Drain /
Grass Knot
Hidden Power [Fire]
Thunder Wave /
Leech Seed
Recover
 
Hi,
really nice team, but it is pretty ordinary typical sets. The only thing I can really see helping you is giving Latios Trick > Psycho Shock. I know you think that Psycho Shock is for Chansey / Blissey but Trick makes them even more useless, maybe even set up fodder for Luke.

You may want to try a silk Scarf on Luke just becuase the recoil is hurting you I can see. You may even want to try a BU Roobushin in place of him.

Other than that nothing else much to say besides your type chart is messed up.

GL
 
Sorry, but this is just a really quick post. Your weakness chart is messed up, you didn't set the abilities of Gengar and Latios to be Levitate.
 
Hi,
really nice team, but it is pretty ordinary typical sets. The only thing I can really see helping you is giving Latios Trick > Psycho Shock. I know you think that Psycho Shock is for Chansey / Blissey but Trick makes them even more useless, maybe even set up fodder for Luke.

You may want to try a silk Scarf on Luke just becuase the recoil is hurting you I can see.

Other than that nothing else much to say.

GL
Ah crap, good looks on Trick. I used trick for a while and I forgot to mention that I'm kind of torn between the two. It's usually hit or miss for me. There are times when Trick is amazing, as I can really cripple an otherwise obnoxious threat/whatever and get to use the entirety of Latios' moveset. However, at the same time, Psycho Shock is nice too, and mis-predicting the right time to use Trick really screws things over.

I'll definitely add it to see what happens and play around with it a bit more.

Sorry, but this is just a really quick post. Your weakness chart is messed up, you didn't set the abilities of Gengar and Latios to be Levitate.
DERP. I'm an idiot. Also very tired. 105 fever has my head all screwed up. I'll get on that. Thanks for catching that!

EDIT: Fixed the chart. Thanks again.
 
Pretty nice team, considering the need to revamp. However, I have a few suggestions.

-Your team as is has some issues with CM Reuniclus, who is unaffected by your sand and hazards and can set up on Latios' -2 Draco Meteor or Garchomp's Earthquake. Tyranitar is a check to it, but it requires more investment in SpD, which is not what your current set seeks to accomplish.

To fix this option, you have several options. You could either run Chople Berry on Tyranitar to survive a +1 Focus Blast and kill it with Crunch, or you could run Trick on Latios (the superior option, IMO). Psycho Shock really only hits Chansey and Blissey, who your team has few issues with thanks to the amount of physical attackers you have, as well as SubSplit Gengar. Trick allows you to cripple stall and last-pokemon stat boosters with ease, so I would suggest this.

-Second, Gliscor is a very real threat to impeding your Lucario sweep. You have two options. With the scorpion being slower this generation, Ice Punch is a viable choice on Lucario, punishing it for switching in, and is the more viable option, IMO. The other choice is to forego Pursuit on Tyranitar in favor of Ice Beam. It easily lures and cripples the likes of Hippowdon and Gliscor to help Lucario sweep, and allows you to keep Stone Edge for Gyara on Luke (you aren't beating Salamence anyway unless you catch in on the switch).

Take your pick - with Ice Punch on Lucario, you gain the ability to defeat Gliscor (and hit Dragonite + Mence harder than SE) much more easily, and it is a much more prominent threat in the metagame than Gyarados at this point. You also get to keep Pursuit on Tar for Latios, which is good for the team as one misprediction with Skarmory could cost you. Ice Beam Tyranitar is still a solid choice, however.

Other than that, you seem to have a good grasp on the metagame and have covered everything well. Good luck.
 
Pretty nice team, considering the need to revamp. However, I have a few suggestions.

-Your team as is has some issues with CM Reuniclus, who is unaffected by your sand and hazards and can set up on Latios' -2 Draco Meteor or Garchomp's Earthquake. Tyranitar is a check to it, but it requires more investment in SpD, which is not what your current set seeks to accomplish.

To fix this option, you have several options. You could either run Chople Berry on Tyranitar to survive a +1 Focus Blast and kill it with Crunch, or you could run Trick on Latios (the superior option, IMO). Psycho Shock really only hits Chansey and Blissey, who your team has few issues with thanks to the amount of physical attackers you have, as well as SubSplit Gengar. Trick allows you to cripple stall and last-pokemon stat boosters with ease, so I would suggest this.

-Second, Gliscor is a very real threat to impeding your Lucario sweep. You have two options. With the scorpion being slower this generation, Ice Punch is a viable choice on Lucario, punishing it for switching in, and is the more viable option, IMO. The other choice is to forego Pursuit on Tyranitar in favor of Ice Beam. It easily lures and cripples the likes of Hippowdon and Gliscor to help Lucario sweep, and allows you to keep Stone Edge for Gyara on Luke (you aren't beating Salamence anyway unless you catch in on the switch).

Take your pick - with Ice Punch on Lucario, you gain the ability to defeat Gliscor (and hit Dragonite + Mence harder than SE) much more easily, and it is a much more prominent threat in the metagame than Gyarados at this point. You also get to keep Pursuit on Tar for Latios, which is good for the team as one misprediction with Skarmory could cost you. Ice Beam Tyranitar is still a solid choice, however.

Other than that, you seem to have a good grasp on the metagame and have covered everything well. Good luck.
Wow! Thanks for the great response. There are some things that you've mentioned that I'm going to implement right away because they're the best way to cover my weaknesses.

I'm definitely going to use Trick on Latios. as you mentioned, Psycho Shock is only good for a select few things and Trick has so many game-changing uses.

I'll also be using Ice Punch on Lucario as I think that's also a better idea than running Ice Beam on Tyranitar. I can't guarantee Tyranitar's existence in the later stages of the game like I can with Lucario.

Thanks again for the advice, compliments, etc! It's good to hear that I have somewhat of a grasp on the metagame. That's a nice relief.
 
Actually, if you want to be safer I can suggest you use Jolly Lucario with Ice Punch as it should beat the common 216 Spe Gliscor. Unless people are running max HP/Def nowadays then never mind. One other solution is to use an Adamant Agility Lucario but then your team would lack the boosted power needed to smash through stall teams and whatnot.
 
216 speed Gliscor is significantly more rare compared to 4th gen. Most are 72 Spe Impish for Jolly Tyranitar. BP Gliscor will outrun you regardless with Rock Polish.
 
Bumping (as much as I am personally against it) for some more rates/suggestions. Gengar has been a little "meh" for me in terms of doing it's job. Sometimes it's great, sometimes it's not.
 
Hello there!

This is a pretty cool team, and actually reminds me a lot like a few Platinum Suspect Gen 4 teams. You even state that this team is a revamp of a 4th Gen team you made, however I think a bit could be done to it. The metagame is incredibly different, and I really think revamping previous generation teams is not the best idea. Oddly enough, you still managed to make a very solid team.

As it stands, I'm worried about Quagsire, opposing Skarmory, Reuniclus and slight issues with Volcarona and Thundurus. You have all your bases covered, and other than the former, I can't think of any Pokemon that outright threatens to sweep you. Quagsire is checked by Latios, so you do have a way to beat it. Skarmory also phazes it consistently although a Curse version could be quite annoying. You seem to have a problem with most water-types, such as Will-o-wisp Jellicent and you lack a solid switch-in to specially-defensive Politoed, which means you are probably going to run into issues with Rain Dance teams.

I think a Pokemon that deals with most of the aforementioned threats is Rotom-C. Rotom-C may not be as successful as Rotom-W after the type change, but it managed to find quite a large niche. It is perhaps the only grass-type that can threaten to OHKO Skarmory. Rotom-C also has a solid 4x resistance to electric-type attacks, allowing it to switch into electric Pokemon such as Thundurus with relative impunity.

Rotom-C @ Leftovers
Modest | Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 164 SpAtk / 92 Spe
Thunderbolt | Leaf Storm | Will-o-wisp / Hidden Power [Fire] | Pain Split

The EVs allow you to outrun Adamant Scizor to allow you to fry it with Hidden Power [Fire] or burn it with Will-o-wisp. This solves your small Quagsire weakness as well, and really enjoys Spikes support. Unfortunately Latios and friends have almost a free switch-in against this thing, so you have to be careful when it comes to that. Rotom-C will be an incredible asset against Rain teams.

This Pokemon can go over either Gengar or Lucario. A spinblocker certainly isn't arbitrary, especially considering that the most common spinner [Doryuuzu] is a no-go for Gengar. You will find that Lucario is very underwhelming in this metagame as well, or maybe that is just me...

Chople Berry > Lum Berry on Tyranitar
You are pretty Reuniclus weak, and if you mispredict Tyranitar and switch it into a Focus Blast you could be in trouble. Also really useful at stopping dangerous sweepers such as Thundurus and Gengar from hurting you. You could also try Superpower > any of your moves bar Stealth Rock as it lets you hit Ferrothorn as well as KO other Tyranitar making it easier for Latios and Gengar.​

If you do decide to keep Gengar, use Leftovers and Disable over Pain Split. Disable is now 100% accurate this generation, and there are a ton of sweepers that cannot touch you without a particular move. Against something like Calm Mind Reuniclus or Bulk Up Conkeldurr, Substitute as they break your Substitute with Psychic/Payback. You can then Disable that move and you are free to hit them hard while they can do nothing due to Gengar's great typing giving it 3 immunities. Also works against Gliscor and stuff like Bronzong. Definitely a worthy addition.

Solid team, good luck!
 

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