LANDO COMMANDO: The Wrath of Newton's Washing Machine

[TheMantyke]

Hello, I'm TheMantyke. I use to be pretty involved in the vgc community, but I realized shortly after the Winter Friendly that I really didn't enjoy competitive Pokemon or competitive gaming in general. I've been absent from the community for about three months now, but it's my spring break at the moment and I have enough free time and boredom to share my last vgc team, my Winter Friendly team. I'm honestly very fond of it, it ended up going from fairly generic to really strange and interesting with a couple of moveslot changes. It's pretty effective and very fun to use. Check it out.

-----

Team Building Process

The team all started with Landorus-I. I fell in love with its Sheer Force Special Attacking set after a few test battles on Pokemon Online. It's powerful, but its poor set of resistances and awkward speed made it so I couldn't slap it on a team easily like a Metagross or a Latios. I felt like it needed to be the center piece of the team so the rest of the team could focus on getting around its obvious weaknesses.

First though, I decided to get a little silly. Landorus-I's Earth Power is devastatingly powerful and I wanted to try using it alongside a sort of optional set up. For this, I thought of using... a Gravity Sableye. It was obviously a bad decision; I scrapped it pretty quickly, but it did provide an idea for later in the team building process.

Forgetting Sableye I decided to go with my more conventional approach to team building and simply pick a partner with good offensive and defensive synergy to form the team's central core. Landorus-I really struggles against Water-type Pokemon, Rain in particular, so I decided to add in a Choice Specs Rotom-W to terrify rain. Between the two of them, they share no weaknesses. The coverage between their STAB attacks is also fantastic.

Rotom-W and Landorus-I aren't particularly fast on their own, but fast enough to outpace most things after an Icy Wind. Cresselia was a no brainer addition giving both the Icy Wind support they wanted and adding a line of defense against Trick Room.

Even with Rotom-W and Cresselia, I was still feeling a little paranoid about rain. At this point, I was also lacking anything to hit Latios, Garchomp, and Thundurus-I for super effective damage. Abomasnow fixed the second problem and gave me more confidence against the first. Rotom-W and Abomasnow made a great anti-rain core and Abomasnow's coverage was great with either Rotom-W or Landorus-I

Usually when I'm making a team, I like to stop at about four members in and change my train of thought. At this point, I start thinking less about what I want to do and more about disrupting my opponent. This means preparing against common threats and making sure I'm not overly vulnerable to any specific type or team archetype. This team had some glaring issues when I got to this portion. I had no Steel-type to tank Draco Meteors, I lacked any sort of super-effective attack against Cresselia, and I lacked generally helpful stuff like Intimidate, Fighting coverage, and Fake Out. Scizor was the next member chosen as it helped out with many of these problemsp; it could tank Draco Meteors, deal with Cresselia, and gave me priority to help with Pokemon landorus-I hates like Abomasnow, Mamoswine, and Latios.

To fill in the last of my troubles, I picked Scrafty. I hadn't used Scrafty in a while, but it had gotten Intimidate recently and that seemed like a good enough excuse to use it. Scrafty really impressed me; it's coverage, bulk, Intimidate, and Fake Out made it among the most valuable of the team's members.

With all the team's members decided, I thought back to my initial idea of using a Sableye and got an idea.

To me, there are two factors that contribute to a win in Pokemon: outplaying your opponent and hax. I do not consider myself a very good player, it's difficult for me to outplay my opponent without some sort of facet to cause I misplay. Usually, I like to include some sort of curve ball on my team to give me that opportunity to surprise my opponent and cause said misplay. Don't get me wrong; I'm not looking for gimmicks that are worthless once my opponent knows what's coming, I'm looking for effective and competitive options, just ones that aren't seen very often.

Gravity gave me that facet.

Cresselia could set it up if I saw an opening and I already had a slew of Pokemon that benefited from it. Landorus-I only needed to worry about the rare Grass-types sponging its STAB attack. Rotom-W could fire off perfectly accurate Choice Specs Thunders and Hydro Pumps. Scrafty could even use Stone Edge if he needed. What was even better was that the team could operate completely independently of this set up, something that any VGC team with some sort of set up should be able to do. Sure, giving up my own Ground immunities isn't ideal, but I found that Pokemon with Ground STAB were usually tucked away once they saw three ground immune and one ground resistant Pokemon in the team preview. I sacrificed Cresselia's coverage by adding Gravity, but it gave me an interesting and really, really fun option.

-----

The Team

KENTUCKY

Trait: Intimidate
EVs: 252 HP / 116 Atk / 30 Def / 108 SDef / 4 Spd
Impish nature (+Def, -SAtk)
- Crunch
- Drain Punch
- Stone Edge
- Fake Out

Scrafty was the last of the Pokemon added to the team, but damn did he pull his weight. Most of my matches, I had Scrafty leading with Cresselia for a nearly free Icy Wind or with Rotom-W for an easy, powerful hit. Intimidate cushions blows for the whole team and Scrafty's natural sturdiness means he can switch in frequently for full effect. The EVs require a bit of explanation: with this spread and nature, Scrafty can always live a Hitmontop's -1 Fight Gem Close Combat or a Latios's Dragon Gem Draco Meteor. I chose a non -Speed nature because if Scrafty actually benefitted from Cresselia's Icy Wind fairly often. The move set is fairly self explanatory with Stone Edge being the only strange addition. I didn't like the idea of Thundurus, Zapdos, and Volcarona having a field day with Cresselia and Scrafty both on the field, so I threw on Stone Edge as a sort of back up answer to them. It even becomes a reliable defense against them when under Cresselia's Gravity.

DUCKY

Trait: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 148 Def / 4 SAtk / 76 SDef / 30 Spd
Calm nature (+SDef, -Atk)
- Psyshock
- Icy Wind
- Trick Room
- Gravity

Cresselia gives the team raw support. Icy Wind and Trick Room provide the team speed control. Icy Wind is the go to move most of the time since the whole team loves it. Trick Room is to invert opponents Trick Room or occasionally set it up for my own use if the opponent has nothing but speed demons left. Gravity turns Landorus-I and Rotom-W from intimidating to terrifying. Early game Gravities allow Rotom-W to bust the mid game open with surprise OHKOs. A late game Gravity sets up Landorus-I to clean everything up. It's a really cool option and I think it's awesome I tried it once I realized I had the Pokemon to harness it. The defensive EV investments are just for general all around bulk. I don't remember for certain, but I don't think they help her dodge any specific KO. The speed investment is to outspeed Rotom-W by a single point so that Cresselia can set up gravity right before Rotom-W attacks with Hydro Pump or Thunder.

LANDO

Trait: Sheer Force
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 254 Spd
Timid nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Earth Power
- Psychic
- Focus Blast
- Protect

I love Landorus-I. This thing hits so darm hard, it's ridiculous. Under Gravity, only the occasional Grass-type is safe from its wrath. Even then, most common Grass-types can't stomach Psychic or Focus Blast well at all. Most games played out with my first three Pokemon chipping away at my opponent until a key threat to Landorus-I was gone. At that point, Landorus could switch in and start wrecking everything. I contemplated giving Landorus-I Hidden Power Ice over Focus Blast, but every time I was about to change it, Landorus-I got some amazing KO with Focus Blast justifying its place as a spectacular coverage move (though horribly unreliable outside of Gravity). The EVs are a simple 252 SpAtk / 252 Speed investment. Landorus is pretty frail thanks to his typing, so I decided to focus simply on dealing as much damage as possible once it's out.

COMMANDO

Trait: Levitate
EVs: 254 HP / 108 Def / 132 SAtk / 4 SDef / 12 Spd
Modest nature (+SAtk, -Atk)
- Thunderbolt
- Hydro Pump
- Thunder
- Trick

Rotom-W is one of my favorite Pokemon in the game. It lends a team a great defense against rain and pulls its weight outside of it phenomenally well. Choice Specs Rotom-W is awesome, but man oh man, a Choice Specs Rotom-W that never misses is even better. Firing off Thunders and Hydro Pumps in Gravity was just so much fun. Rotom-W's EVs allow him to stomach physical hits very well and dodge OHKOs from things like Jolly Fight Gem Terrakion's Close Combat and +2 Metagross's Zen Headbutt. Two points of speed creep were added followed by dumping the rest in Special Attack with a pinch of Special Defense thanks to level 50 stats.

SNOW WHITE

Trait: Snow Warning
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 254 SAtk
Quiet nature (+SAtk, -Spd)
- Blizzard
- Giga Drain
- Ice Shard
- Protect

Abomasnow makes my whole team a lot more comfortable versus Rain, Trick Room, Genies, and Dragon-types. Additionally, it forms a great anti rain core with Rotom-W, a great Special Attacking core with Landorus-I, and a good (anti) trick room core with Scrafty. The whole team really appreciates its STAB Blizzards and Giga Drain (especially when Gastrodon's out). I opted to use a Focus Sashed variant of Abomasnow over a Choice Scarfed one since I disliked how easy it was to dispose of a Choice Scarfed Abomasnow with a Bullet Punch. The EVs don't require much explanation, max Special Attack and max HP accompanied by minimum speed to operate better in Trick Room.

DYNAMITE

Trait: Technician
EVs: 254 HP / 196 Atk / 60 SDef
Adamant nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Bullet Punch
- Bug Bite
- Feint
- Protect

Scizor helps the team out by sponging Dragon-type attacks and mauling Cresselia. He adds some much needed physical oompah and pairs well with nearly every team member (sans Abomasnow when there's a Heat Wave user around). I opted for Feint over Acrobatics since I had things like Hitmontop covered reasonably well already with Landorus-I and Cresselia and I loved the ability to snag opponents with key Earth Powers. The EVs give Scizor some decent special bulk, something very important for sponging Latios's Draco Meteors.

And well, that's everything. This team hasn't accomplished anything special like a high ranking in the winter friendly or topping the showdown leaderboards, but I'm proud of it. It's some of the most fun I've had with the game since Choice Scarf Cloyster made my day at the 2012 Southeastern regional. I hope you folks take it out for a spin sometime and feel the same sense of satisfaction I did doing ridiculous things like OHKOing Zapdos and Thundurus-I with Earth Power.

-----

Play With This Team!

I don't have the team in exportable format, but I have uploaded all the Pokemon to a Pokecheck Box where all there information is neatly displayed. All of the Pokemon there are up for public download except for Landorus-I which isn't mine. Feel free to download them and send them to your cartridge for use on the GBU!

Thank you for reading!

 

[Phozon]

I'll do a better RMT when I have some more time, but things I want to say right off the bat, why are you running Psychic? It doesn't cover that much in the VGC meta that you can't hit w/ FB or Earth Power. Also, if you are gonna go w/ a more offensive Aboma, would you consider it to be scarfed? I know shash is good but still, Blizzard spamming is always a nice thing.

 

[TheMantyke]

I'll do a better RMT when I have some more time, but things I want to say right off the bat, why are you running Psychic? It doesn't cover that much in the VGC meta that you can't hit w/ FB or Earth Power. Also, if you are gonna go w/ a more offensive Aboma, would you consider it to be scarfed? I know shash is good but still, Blizzard spamming is always a nice thing.

Hi and thank you for rating.

Focus Blast isn't meant to be used as a reliable coverage option, it's moreso a dynamite attack under Gravity or as a risky way to score big KOs. Psychic is much more reliable and is really strong factoring in the Sheer Force boost (reaching essetially 117 Base Power). As strange as it may sound, Psychic + Ground is actually pretty good coverage. All that resists it are a handful of levitating, flying, and grass Pokemon. I've considered dropping either for Hidden Power Ice, but I prefer the strong neutral hit Psychic provides against most things Earth Power can't hit instead of the occasionally super effective hit Hidden Power Ice provides. Psychic also has the awesome benefit of neglecting Life Orb recoil.

As for Abomasnow, as I mentioned in the RMT, I've thought about a Choice Scarf Abomasnow, but I dislike how easy it is to just Bullet Punch and send it home. Focus Sash gives me some welcomed leeway room and a stronger match up versus Rain and Trick Room

 

[Phozon]

Alrighty, I've already read what you said and now I got more time, so let's do this *cracks knuckles*

Ok the first thing that really stuck out to me is how little you have to handle sun teams. I know they are rare but if they lead with something like, Ninetales and a Scarfed Typhlosion, you might have a problem on your hand. Even still, any fast fire type for the most part can give you a few problems baring you don't bring the appropriate pokes.

Also, you say you have a way to handle rain and for the most part I agree with you, however, there are a few pokes you should be warry of. the first would be Life Orb Kingdra[. LO Hyro Pump will ALWAYS OHKO you're Scizor and while you do have Rotom, most team carry Ludicolo which can sponge Hydro's for days (assuming the bulkie set) and can wither down your Rotom w/ Leech Seeds or Giga Drain. Other then that, this is a VERY solid team, one of the best I've seen in a while.

 

[TheMantyke]

Ok the first thing that really stuck out to me is how little you have to handle sun teams. I know they are rare but if they lead with something like, Ninetales and a Scarfed Typhlosion, you might have a problem on your hand. Even still, any fast fire type for the most part can give you a few problems baring you don't bring the appropriate pokes.

I'll admit, the team is pretty vulnerable to fire-type Pokemon with only one Pokemon resisting their attacks while two others are eaten alive by fire. However, I'm not really overly concerned about fire-types or sun teams in general since Cresselia can stomach a few fire hits and get rid of their speed advantage and Landorus can pulverize many of sun's slower members late game. Against sun teams, my first action is usually to lead with Cresselia and Scrafty, Fake Out the deadlier Pokemon, and set up Trick Room to make Chlorophyll and Choice Scarf Pokemon easier to deal with. From there, Scrafty can Stone Edge and Rotom-W can Hydro Pump (which is still pretty effective in the sun despite the damage reduction) until Landorus-I can come in late game after Trick Room wears off to score the last few KOs.

Also, you say you have a way to handle rain and for the most part I agree with you, however, there are a few pokes you should be warry of. the first would be Life Orb Kingdra[. LO Hyro Pump will ALWAYS OHKO you're Scizor and while you do have Rotom, most team carry Ludicolo which can sponge Hydro's for days (assuming the bulkie set) and can wither down your Rotom w/ Leech Seeds or Giga Drain.

Scizor isn't really meant to be the be all end all answer to Dragon-types for the team, just one to sponge obvious Draco Meteors. Kingdra does have that lethal secondary stab, but its Special Attack is a lot lower than that of, say, a Latios, so I can afford to take a Draco with one of my other team members. Against a Kingdra, I prefer to sponge a hit with Cress, try to set up Trick Room and ruin its speed advantage, then either bring in Rotom-W to spam Thunder or Abomasnow to turn the weather in my favor. It might sound like a lot to do for one Pokemon, but that goes a long way for beating bog rain in general.

I'm kind of confused by your Ludicolo comments. Against Rain, I rarely ever use Hydro Pump; it's almost exclusively Thunderbolt and Thunder. Even bulky Ludicolos dislike taking those sort of hits.

Other then that, this is a VERY solid team, one of the best I've seen in a while.

Thank you very much and thank you for your rate.

 

[Cherub Agent]

I'm no great shakes at vgc at all, but considering Landorus kinda struggles with Grass-types under Gravity wouldnt Sludge Wave be more useful to you than Psychic? It is after all also boosted by sheer force.

That said i can tell an excellent team from an average onr and this one certainly falls into the former category. Very specific ev spreads are impressive, and if you dont mind id like to steal this~

 

[TheMantyke]

I'm no great shakes at vgc at all, but considering Landorus kinda struggles with Grass-types under Gravity wouldnt Sludge Wave be more useful to you than Psychic? It is after all also boosted by sheer force.

Now that you mention it poison coverage actually doesn't sound like a half bad idea (never thought I'd ever say that in life), though not really for that reason. Ironically, many of the Grass-types I see running around VGC are struck harder by Psychic than by Poison, including Virizion, Breloom, Amoonguss, and Venusaur. What's really neat about Poison coverage is that it gives me a strong hit on things like Cresselia and Hydreigon without having to set up Gravity at the expense of easier Grass and Fighting-type KOs. Thanks for the idea.

Sadly I can't use Sludge Wave since it's a spread move in doubles that also damages my partner, but Sludge Bomb sounds just as good!

That said i can tell an excellent team from an average onr and this one certainly falls into the former category. Very specific ev spreads are impressive, and if you dont mind id like to steal this~

Thank you. Feel free to play around with it.