Introduction
So, this is my first Rate My Team I've made, so if there are some novice mistakes in the creation, please just try to bear with me. I apologize in advance.
Anyways on to the actual team, I used this team at the Athens, Georgia regionals and did better than I thought. They achieved a 5-3 W/L record, though it didn't rank too high (Below Top 32). The most positive ratio the team had was a 4-1 record at the end of Round 5. Regardless, I'd just like some opinions on what to fix. So let's get started then.
The Team has had many edits now, the original team started off as:
The current team is:
Teambuilding
Purpose of the Team: I wanted initially to have a kind of goodstuffs sort of mixed team. In the end, I mostly wanted something to be almost anti-metagame and to be very controlling of battle.
Originally what inspired me to start the team was the Murkrow + Rampardos combination. From there I based the rest of the team on things that would help counter against things.
After getting some criticism, I decided that Tornadus worked much better than Murkrow to set up Tailwind due to Tornadus's higher offensive prowess. Abomasnow did the job of Kingdra + Gardevoir to eliminate weather, except instead of wasting a turn to set up Abomasnow does it as soon as she's out on the field. Gastrodon was used to fill in the empty slot when Gardevoir was removed, and works well to absorb water type attacks and has an immunity to discharge as well as overall bulk.
The Team Itself
Tornadus / Tornadus
Item: Flying Gem Ability: Prankster Nature: Jolly
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Moves:
~Acrobatics
~Tailwind
~Taunt
~Protect
Description: One of the star members of the team, the flying genie Tornadus. His ever useful Tailwind support allows Rampardos to function and helps the whole team in general. His Acrobatics is always a nice asset to hit anything with, and help alleviate some of the pressure of Spore Amoonguss. His team synergy is strong, working well with almost every member, while catering to Rampardos's strengths and weaknesses. Immunity to Rampardos's Earthquake is essential as a partner and Flying Gem boosted Acrobatics works well in conjunction to hit Fighting Types that would otherwise threaten Rampardos. Tornadus also works well with Infernape as the Fake Out support helps Tailwind go up more easily.
Kris P. / Infernape
Item: Life Orb Ability: Blaze Nature: Naive
EVs: 116 Atk / 140 SpA / 252 Spe
Moves:
~Heat Wave
~Close Combat
~Fake Out
~Protect
Description: The basic Infernape set, but what's wrong with the basics? Fake Out is benicial when paired with Tornadus as it helps Tailwind get up with relative ease. Not only that, but due to her quick speed Infernape can outpace common Fake Out users for her own Fake Out. She adds great coverage with STAB Heat Wave and Close Combat taking down Ferrothorn, Scizor, Metagross, (After eliminating Occa Berries) and anything weak to fighting. She adds useful synergy to the team and works well with most Pokémon on the team. (Although she is best paired with Tornadus and Gengar to set up Tailwind and cover their weaknesses respectively)
Nightwalkr / Gengar
Item: Ghost Gem Ability: Levitate Nature: Timid
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Sp.A / 252 Spe
Moves:
~Shadow Ball
~Thunderbolt
~Destiny Bond
~Protect
Description: One of the most changed members of the team, this ghost has always been a force to be reckoned with. His typing and ability adds some much needed immunity to the team, being immune to Fake Out, Fighting Type moves, and Earthquake. (Although Rampardos's Earthquake will unfortunately go through Levitate) Gengar serves a much needed role in dealing with Latios if given the chance to as it speed ties and can OHKO him with Ghost Gem boosted Shadow Ball. Thunderbolt also adds some much needed Electric coverage that was lacking in the team. Destiny Bond is a lesser used choice to catch some opponent's off guard and land a free KO before he goes down. His synergy is overall strong as he works well as a goodstuffs, but Gengar is usually best paired with Infernape to cover each others' weak points.
Shellshock / Gastrodon
Item: Leftovers Ability: Storm Drain Nature: Bold
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Moves:
~Muddy Water
~Earth Power
~Blizzard
~Protect
Description: Originally the main menace of the team, she somehow managed to sneak into it. Gastrodon's immunity to Surf and Discharge and access to Muddy Water is what mainly did it for me. Blizzard is nice in conjunction with Abomosnow so there's more than one thing on the team that can hit Dragons and birds. The much needed immunities this slug has to offer is really just sort of a glue in the team to help deal with some otherwise very threatening forces. (Zapdos, Thundurus, Opposing Gastrodon, Swift Swimmers, and ZapChomp)
Headache / Rampardos
Item: Rock Gem Ability: Mold Breaker Nature: Adamant
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Sp.D / 252 Spe
Moves:
~Rock Slide
~Earthquake
~Head Smash
~Protect
Description: My now staple Pokémon for this and future VGCs, good 'ol Rampy. With an absolutely monstrous Attack, and a speed usable with Tailwind I was beyond eager to try him out. STAB Rock Slide and Earthquake are the definition of bread and butter, hitting everything that doesn't resist it (And even some who do) very hard. Head Smash hits through Wide Guard and works well as general powerful single attacking STAB. The main reason I even considered using Rampardos was purely for its power, so I made sure to try to maximize it. Rock Gem adds a kick to his Rock Slide and makes Head Smash ludicrously powerful even hitting 61% min on a Specially Defensive Cresselia. Its Mold Breaker ability proves useful, 2HKOing standard Bronzong with Earthquake. Rampardos has great team synergy with Tornadus giving Rampardos all the oppurtunities it needs to pull of Earthquake and gaining an almost guaranteed Tailwind boost. Also, Tornadus can cover some of the Fighting weakness Rampardos has. With the rest of the team, he works overall well being a hard hitter and striking down anything that doesn't take him down first. Overall, his huge power, great ability, and perfect movepool for his purpose allow him to be a great Tailwind sweeper. Be it on Wi-Fi or at the VGC, some teams literally get devastated by this beast if they come unprepared for it. He caught some people by surprise, and he was definitely a lot of fun to use.
HailYeah / Abomasnow
Item: Choice Scarf Ability: Snow Warning Nature: Timid
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Sp.A / 252 Spe
Moves:
~Blizzard
~Energy Ball
~Ice Shard
~Focus Blast
Description: With its ability in Snow Warning and low amount of Hail Teams, Abomasnow serves as the anti-weather Pokémon of the team setting up permahail. The addition of perfect accuracy Blizzard backed with Choice Scarf serves a very useful purpose in eliminating the once very threatening ZapChomp combo. Not only that, but being able to fire off constant Blizzards helps to have some constant damage always going on. Giga Drain is used as STAB and Gastrodon counter and Ice Shard is for last attempt attacks. The last slot is still not completely decided on. For now I've decided to use Focus Blast; however, its shaky accuracy is still somewhat troublesome. If another move comes about that could work better, I'll look into it, but for now she'll be running Focus Blast to hit opposing Ice and Rock types.
Threats
Tyranitar
Nothing on my team can really OHKO Tyranitar. Not only that, but he pretty much has STAB supereffective on at least half the team. The only real counters available on the team are a Focus Blast from Abomasnow, Close Combat from Infernape, and as a last resort: Gengar's Destiny Bond. Overall, this thing is just annoying to the team.
Cresselia
Despite Gengar's power, this bulky lunar Pokémon proved to be quite a nuisance to the team. With majority carrying Icy Wind, it renders all speed boost attempts from my side useless. Add on to the fact that it can OHKO two of my Pokémon, and brush off hits from my side if I don't dual target her, she is a real pest on the field.
Trick Room
Although being equipped with Fake Out and Taunt, as most Trick Room setters tend to be ghost types carrying Mental Herbs, Trick Room can be rather difficult to avoid. Fortunately, most of my Pokémon carry Protect so stalling it out is the best option; however, it still poses a threat to the team.
There are other threats, but those are really the only specific ones worth mentioning that I recall right now. If there are any more, please do say so and I'll update it.
Conclusion
After adding some much needed changes, this team seems very solid. It offers some of the more underrated Pokémon a chance to shine and Rampardos works as a very nice gimmick with his ridiculous Attack stat. Overall, I'm very satisfied with the results. The team also entered the 2012 Spring Friendly and ranked in 84th place with 43 Wins and 5 Losses.
But regardless of all the changes I've made, what could I improve on? Thanks for reading.
So, this is my first Rate My Team I've made, so if there are some novice mistakes in the creation, please just try to bear with me. I apologize in advance.
Anyways on to the actual team, I used this team at the Athens, Georgia regionals and did better than I thought. They achieved a 5-3 W/L record, though it didn't rank too high (Below Top 32). The most positive ratio the team had was a 4-1 record at the end of Round 5. Regardless, I'd just like some opinions on what to fix. So let's get started then.
The Team has had many edits now, the original team started off as:
The current team is:
Teambuilding
Purpose of the Team: I wanted initially to have a kind of goodstuffs sort of mixed team. In the end, I mostly wanted something to be almost anti-metagame and to be very controlling of battle.
Originally what inspired me to start the team was the Murkrow + Rampardos combination. From there I based the rest of the team on things that would help counter against things.
After getting some criticism, I decided that Tornadus worked much better than Murkrow to set up Tailwind due to Tornadus's higher offensive prowess. Abomasnow did the job of Kingdra + Gardevoir to eliminate weather, except instead of wasting a turn to set up Abomasnow does it as soon as she's out on the field. Gastrodon was used to fill in the empty slot when Gardevoir was removed, and works well to absorb water type attacks and has an immunity to discharge as well as overall bulk.
The Team Itself
Tornadus / Tornadus
Item: Flying Gem Ability: Prankster Nature: Jolly
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Moves:
~Acrobatics
~Tailwind
~Taunt
~Protect
Description: One of the star members of the team, the flying genie Tornadus. His ever useful Tailwind support allows Rampardos to function and helps the whole team in general. His Acrobatics is always a nice asset to hit anything with, and help alleviate some of the pressure of Spore Amoonguss. His team synergy is strong, working well with almost every member, while catering to Rampardos's strengths and weaknesses. Immunity to Rampardos's Earthquake is essential as a partner and Flying Gem boosted Acrobatics works well in conjunction to hit Fighting Types that would otherwise threaten Rampardos. Tornadus also works well with Infernape as the Fake Out support helps Tailwind go up more easily.
Kris P. / Infernape
Item: Life Orb Ability: Blaze Nature: Naive
EVs: 116 Atk / 140 SpA / 252 Spe
Moves:
~Heat Wave
~Close Combat
~Fake Out
~Protect
Description: The basic Infernape set, but what's wrong with the basics? Fake Out is benicial when paired with Tornadus as it helps Tailwind get up with relative ease. Not only that, but due to her quick speed Infernape can outpace common Fake Out users for her own Fake Out. She adds great coverage with STAB Heat Wave and Close Combat taking down Ferrothorn, Scizor, Metagross, (After eliminating Occa Berries) and anything weak to fighting. She adds useful synergy to the team and works well with most Pokémon on the team. (Although she is best paired with Tornadus and Gengar to set up Tailwind and cover their weaknesses respectively)
Nightwalkr / Gengar
Item: Ghost Gem Ability: Levitate Nature: Timid
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Sp.A / 252 Spe
Moves:
~Shadow Ball
~Thunderbolt
~Destiny Bond
~Protect
Description: One of the most changed members of the team, this ghost has always been a force to be reckoned with. His typing and ability adds some much needed immunity to the team, being immune to Fake Out, Fighting Type moves, and Earthquake. (Although Rampardos's Earthquake will unfortunately go through Levitate) Gengar serves a much needed role in dealing with Latios if given the chance to as it speed ties and can OHKO him with Ghost Gem boosted Shadow Ball. Thunderbolt also adds some much needed Electric coverage that was lacking in the team. Destiny Bond is a lesser used choice to catch some opponent's off guard and land a free KO before he goes down. His synergy is overall strong as he works well as a goodstuffs, but Gengar is usually best paired with Infernape to cover each others' weak points.
Shellshock / Gastrodon
Item: Leftovers Ability: Storm Drain Nature: Bold
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Moves:
~Muddy Water
~Earth Power
~Blizzard
~Protect
Description: Originally the main menace of the team, she somehow managed to sneak into it. Gastrodon's immunity to Surf and Discharge and access to Muddy Water is what mainly did it for me. Blizzard is nice in conjunction with Abomosnow so there's more than one thing on the team that can hit Dragons and birds. The much needed immunities this slug has to offer is really just sort of a glue in the team to help deal with some otherwise very threatening forces. (Zapdos, Thundurus, Opposing Gastrodon, Swift Swimmers, and ZapChomp)
Headache / Rampardos
Item: Rock Gem Ability: Mold Breaker Nature: Adamant
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Sp.D / 252 Spe
Moves:
~Rock Slide
~Earthquake
~Head Smash
~Protect
Description: My now staple Pokémon for this and future VGCs, good 'ol Rampy. With an absolutely monstrous Attack, and a speed usable with Tailwind I was beyond eager to try him out. STAB Rock Slide and Earthquake are the definition of bread and butter, hitting everything that doesn't resist it (And even some who do) very hard. Head Smash hits through Wide Guard and works well as general powerful single attacking STAB. The main reason I even considered using Rampardos was purely for its power, so I made sure to try to maximize it. Rock Gem adds a kick to his Rock Slide and makes Head Smash ludicrously powerful even hitting 61% min on a Specially Defensive Cresselia. Its Mold Breaker ability proves useful, 2HKOing standard Bronzong with Earthquake. Rampardos has great team synergy with Tornadus giving Rampardos all the oppurtunities it needs to pull of Earthquake and gaining an almost guaranteed Tailwind boost. Also, Tornadus can cover some of the Fighting weakness Rampardos has. With the rest of the team, he works overall well being a hard hitter and striking down anything that doesn't take him down first. Overall, his huge power, great ability, and perfect movepool for his purpose allow him to be a great Tailwind sweeper. Be it on Wi-Fi or at the VGC, some teams literally get devastated by this beast if they come unprepared for it. He caught some people by surprise, and he was definitely a lot of fun to use.
HailYeah / Abomasnow
Item: Choice Scarf Ability: Snow Warning Nature: Timid
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Sp.A / 252 Spe
Moves:
~Blizzard
~Energy Ball
~Ice Shard
~Focus Blast
Description: With its ability in Snow Warning and low amount of Hail Teams, Abomasnow serves as the anti-weather Pokémon of the team setting up permahail. The addition of perfect accuracy Blizzard backed with Choice Scarf serves a very useful purpose in eliminating the once very threatening ZapChomp combo. Not only that, but being able to fire off constant Blizzards helps to have some constant damage always going on. Giga Drain is used as STAB and Gastrodon counter and Ice Shard is for last attempt attacks. The last slot is still not completely decided on. For now I've decided to use Focus Blast; however, its shaky accuracy is still somewhat troublesome. If another move comes about that could work better, I'll look into it, but for now she'll be running Focus Blast to hit opposing Ice and Rock types.
Threats
Tyranitar
Nothing on my team can really OHKO Tyranitar. Not only that, but he pretty much has STAB supereffective on at least half the team. The only real counters available on the team are a Focus Blast from Abomasnow, Close Combat from Infernape, and as a last resort: Gengar's Destiny Bond. Overall, this thing is just annoying to the team.
Cresselia
Despite Gengar's power, this bulky lunar Pokémon proved to be quite a nuisance to the team. With majority carrying Icy Wind, it renders all speed boost attempts from my side useless. Add on to the fact that it can OHKO two of my Pokémon, and brush off hits from my side if I don't dual target her, she is a real pest on the field.
Trick Room
Although being equipped with Fake Out and Taunt, as most Trick Room setters tend to be ghost types carrying Mental Herbs, Trick Room can be rather difficult to avoid. Fortunately, most of my Pokémon carry Protect so stalling it out is the best option; however, it still poses a threat to the team.
There are other threats, but those are really the only specific ones worth mentioning that I recall right now. If there are any more, please do say so and I'll update it.
Conclusion
Original Conclusion
Overall, very satisfied with this team. I had some practice with it on PO, but I only actually got maybe 2 or 3 matches in prior to the VGC on Wi-Fi. Sadly, that actually did account to some problems as Infernape should have gotten more usage, and some other mistakes. It seems as if with some changes I actually might have ended up 6-2, but that's just me being overly confident in my team.
Overall, very satisfied with this team. I had some practice with it on PO, but I only actually got maybe 2 or 3 matches in prior to the VGC on Wi-Fi. Sadly, that actually did account to some problems as Infernape should have gotten more usage, and some other mistakes. It seems as if with some changes I actually might have ended up 6-2, but that's just me being overly confident in my team.
After adding some much needed changes, this team seems very solid. It offers some of the more underrated Pokémon a chance to shine and Rampardos works as a very nice gimmick with his ridiculous Attack stat. Overall, I'm very satisfied with the results. The team also entered the 2012 Spring Friendly and ranked in 84th place with 43 Wins and 5 Losses.
But regardless of all the changes I've made, what could I improve on? Thanks for reading.