Team Vengeance - My first RMT (4th gen)

[Torniron]

Intro

Hey, this is my first ever RMT and 2nd team as my first one was a failure but I've done well with this one achieving 30 wins and 6 losses with 1 D/C because my Wi-Fi USB droped out. I've pretty much made this account to put this RMT for some advice. Overall I'm pretty proud of my new team but I've just had 1 little issue which is Mixape. I've only bet 3 and in the process I tend to lose 2 pokemon to him which really sucks and I want to change this. I've considered geting a gyarados in place of Dragonite and Swampert but I don't want half my team as water types or losing my stealth rock's. Both are bad and options that I don't want to take.

A quick look at my team

A deeper look into my team

Swampert @ Leftovers
Ability - Torrent
Nature - Relaxed
EV's - 252HP, 208DEF, 48SpD
Moveset
Earthquake
Ice beam
Stealth rock
Roar

Swampert is my lead because of his reliability to get up stealth rocks up which to start off with, is a huge advantage. Earthquake is a powerful STAB move for swampert and hit's a big handful of pokemon for neutral or super effective damage. Ice beam is there for hitting grass pokemon looking for a 1HKO and flying pokemon who are immune to my earthquake. Roar is for preventing pokemon from setting up on me and for racking up some stealth rock damage while seeing what my oppenents team is so I can see what to kill to get a clean sweep with Dragonite or Suicune. Leftovers is a must on this because of it's lack of recovery. The main issues with my swampert are it's lack of recovery and Roserade and Smeargle leads which I usually have to let suicune take the sleep but if Roserade decides to leaf storm, I'm pretty much screwed.

Scizor @ Choice band
Ability - Technician
Nature - Adamant
EV's - 252ATT, 252HP, 4DEF
Moveset
Bullet punch
U-turn
Pursuit
Superpower

My Scizor is pretty much your standard choice band Scizor to revenge kill, the thing it does best. It kills whatever is left of a pokemon and does it well. Bullet punch is a priorty STAB which is great with is below average speed. U-turn is good for racking up free damage on many slower pokemon. Pursuit helps me trap pokemon like Azelf, Gengar and etc. Finally superpower is good for those pesky steel types who will be the first thing that will switch into this. Another bonus for me is that Scizor gives me many free flash fire boosts for Heatran and make him very destructive. A issue with Scizor is his speed and alot of the time it will cost him half his health or sometimes a death which isn't cool at all. Overall he cleans up the scraps for my team.

Celebi @ Leftovers
Ability - Natural cure
Nature - Bold
EV's - 252HP, 252DEF, 4SpD
Moveset
Thunder wave
Leech seed
Energy ball
Recover

This is my Celebi and is such a important member of my team for it's paralysis support for my team with below average speed. It's a staller/ wall/ support taking hits, stalling pokemon out with leech seed and recover and supporting some team members with paralysis and leech seed. Thunder wave is for my rather slow pokemon to outspeed anything that gets paralysis and helps me cripple sweepers that need there speed to sweep. Leech seed is for stalling and giving recovery to my team (especially swampert.) Energy ball is a nice STAB move to get some damage done if needed and finally recover obviously to keep Celebi alive and be able to stall/ wall/ support longer which is always good. Leftovers are always good when stalling and walling. Honestly this thing hasn't gave me much trouble apart from getting trapped from Scizor and Tyranitar with pursuit which can really suck for me. Overall this is a key to my team for support, walling and stalling.

Heatran @ Life orb
Ability - Flash Fire
Nature - Timid
EV's - 252SPA, 252SPE, 4HP
Moveset
Fire blast
Earth power
HP Electric
Explosion

This is Heatran and he clears the way for Suicune and Dragonite to sweep. He averages atleast a kill every battle and sometimes he can steal the sweep. He pretty much chew's through the team and when the time is right he will explode and get kill almost anything that doesn't resist it. Fire blast is such a powerful move and can give a big dent into anything that doesnt resist it (apart from the pink blob.) Earth power kills other fire types and kills other Heatrans that try to nab a flash fire boost. HP Electric kills alot of bulky waters and can kill Gyarados that resists Fire blast and Earth power. Explosion will always kill Blissey if she thinks it's smart to come in and once again, kill pretty much anything that doesn't resist it. The life orb is for the extra damage with the ability to not be locked in a move which is great when blowing holes in your oppenents team. The only issues with this Heatran is I'm open to letting a Dragonite setup on me and after 1 dragon dance, I'm in a very bad position and usually have to go to Swampert and beg to the pokemon god's I can survive a dragon claw and kill it with ice beam. Overall this thing is a very destructive pokemon and opens the door to let my Suicune and Dragonite sweep.

Starmie @ Life orb
Ability - Natural cure
Nature - Timid
EV's - 252SPA, 252SPE, 4HP
Moveset
Hydro pump
Thunderbolt
Ice beam
Rapid spin

This Starmie suggested by AB2 who replaced Suicune. I still use Suicune every once and awhile but Starmie is prefered over Suicune. Anyways more importantly this is mainly for rapid spin support and a way to counter fast oppenents like infernape my 1# threat and as mentioned before it helps with my weakness to spiker teams. Hydro pump is a very power STAB move and hit's alot of pokemon hard with it's base 100 special attack. Thunderbolt is for hit gyarados and other waters. Ice beam for the extra coverage and rapid spin to stop spikers from hurting my team and makes life easier for dragonite. Overall I can't say too much since his a very new member to the team but he's doing well.

Dragonite @ Leftovers
Ability - Inner focus
Nature - Adamant
EV's - 252HP, 52ATT, 204SPE
Moveset
Dragon dance
Dragon claw
Earthquake
Roost

My favourite pokemon of all time.. DRAGONITE! This thing is devastating once it get's a dragon dance up and it's not hard at all to do. Dragon dance is once again the key of the set for obvious reasons.. Dragon claw I thought was better then outrage incase of a steel type (like Scizor) comes and can setup sword dances on me. It also gets STAB and is only resisted by steel types, Which is why earthquake is there. Dragon claw and earthquake hit every pokemon for neutral or super effective damage apart from Bronzong and Skarmory which is a huge plus. I picked roost over Fire punch just because I thought it's worth having something to recover the life orb damage and priorty move damage then to kill Skarmory and Bronzong when there both killed by Heatran. Life orb is there because alot of the time I ended up finding a yache berry doesn't get used often enough and alot of pokemon were left on 1/8 HP which got very annoying.. Then I tried a life orb and got a clean sweep. The only issues which was mentioned before was Skarmory and Bronzong which ruin the sweeps but it doesn't matter an awful bunch since Heatran 1HKO's with Fire blast.

Summary

I would like to know on how to improve on my team and counter mixapes and others you guys can pick out.
Baiii! :happybrain: Sorry, I had to do that :D

 

[george182]

Toxic spikes, spikes etc. could be a real problem for this team. You could also do with another EQ imunity, so I suggest Switching swampert to a scarf flygon.

Flygon @ Choice scarf
Adamant/Jolly
252atk/252speed/4hp
- Outrage
- Earthquake
- Dragon Claw/Fire blast/Toxic
- U-turn

This also helps out vs Calm mind Raikou, Jolteon, Starmie etc and also solves your infernape trouble. Now obviously, flygon is not a very good lead, so I suggest moving heatran to the lead posistion, Life orb heatran has a favourable matchup vs many leads. You don't need T-punch as gyra is nicely covered, so you have a variety of options.

Heatran @ Life orb
Modest
252 special attack/224 speed/32 attack
- Overheat
- Earthpower/Stealth rocks
- Hp Grass/Stealth rocks
- Explosion

Overheat will OHKO Machamp, Occa metagross and even max hp hippowdon. Hp grass hits those water types, and gets a nice OHKO on swampert, Earthpower hits Heatran/Infernape, and explosion is a great move on heatran as ghosts and steel types are scared of switching in. Obviously you loose your SR user, so you can put them on heatran, or put them on celebi, I think celebi would be better, but it's your choice.

Hope I helped

also, I'll just point out that one of your statements is incorrect:

Explosion will always kill Blissey

a 194 attack, life orbed explosion vs Max hp Max defence Bold Blissey with a Chilan Berry = 48.5% - 57.1%

XD

 

[[HP] Juan]

In scizor, your ev's are bad, better if you run these: 252 ATK/ 252 HP/ 4 def.

 

[BKC]

Hi, this looks like a pretty good team, but I have a couple of suggestions.

1). Change Scizor's EV spread. Max speed really isn't necessary, and you lose out on the ability to take hits, which Scizor is meant to do while scouting the opponent's team. I'd recommend changing it to 252 Attack / 248 HP / 8 SDef to take the minimal amount of damage from entry hazards and the best amount of bulk for switching into resisted attacks. You can even live an HP Fire from defensive Celebi from near to full HP.

2). Switch Celebi's Sp. Def EVs to Defense. Celebi has much more potential as a physical wall than special, this will somewhat help alleviate your Pursuit weakness. Also, Grass Knot is generally more useful than Energy Ball, who's only advantage is being able to hit Vaporeon harder, but Grass Knot does a pretty nasty sum of damage to it anyways, plus you have Leech Seed and recover, while Vaporeon can't exactly do much back to you. Another advantage is being able to hit Rotom-A, but you generally won't stay in on those in fear of a STAB Shadow Ball.

3). Change CroCune to offensive Cune. Right now you have a bit of a Swords Dance Lucario weakness. It can set up on something like Scizor's CB-locked Pursuit, and if Suicune is weaker than 80% (the minimum amount of damage +2 Close Combat will do) or is asleep and does not have full control of its moves, then you will get swept. Offensive Suicune provides with a good solution to this problem, as well as being a more effective sweeper in today's metagame than Crocune is.

Suicune @ Leftovers Trait: Pressure
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Calm Mind
- Hydro Pump
- Ice Beam
- Hidden Power [Electric]


Again, solid team. I'd recommend also going with the suggestions George182 made, good luck.

 

[AB2]

Hey, this seems like a solid modern day OU team and it utilizes some cool sets; however there are some suggestions that I would like you to take a look at to better your team. First of all, I notice quite a glaring weakness to Swords Dance Lucario. Your Celebi, which is the one of the closest pokemon to a check on this team is easily blown away by a +2 Crunch as it has only 4 EVs invested in defense. Unfortunately, it quite easily sets up on Scizor locked into the wrong move, meaning that your team can be broken by Lucario even earlier in the game. For a little bit more insurance against Lucario I would switch Celebi for a Life Orb Shaymin. This will allow you to check Lucario to an extent and have a power sweeper while you are at it.

Shaymin @ Life Orb
Timid 4 HP | 252 SpA | 252 Spe Natural Cure
Seed Flare | Hidden Power [Ice] | Earth Power | Rest

Now you have a fine check to Lucario, as Shaymin's naturally high speed and powerful attacks will make Lucario not sweep your team as easily as it did before. I also notice a problem with stall teams here. Skarmory easily spikes on many of your pokemon and you have no rapid spinner or even a stall breaker to fight back against stall. After Skarmory is done spiking, it can choose to phaze and wear you down. I have a quick fix for you to try out in fixing this weakness. I suggest that you try and run Taunt over Explosion on Heatran. This will give you a very potent stallbreaker; however Skarmory still spikes on the majority of your team. I suggest that your try a Starmie over Suicune on this team. Not only will this give you a great offensive rapid spinner, but it will also give you an amazing check to Infernape, which you mentioned was trouble from the beginning.

Starmie @ Life Orb
Timid 4 HP | 252 SpA | 252 Spe Natural Cure
Hydro Pump | Thunderbolt | Ice Beam | Rapid Spin

Finally, I really believe that Swampert needs to be replaced. Not only is Swampert an ineffective lead in today's metagame but it is just set up fodder for too much such as spikes and breloom. I think a Lead Jirachi over Swampert. A lead scarf Jirahi will allow you to check Dragonite | Tyranitar and others as well as laying up stealth rocks. I would run Iron Head | Stealth Rocks | Trick | Ice Punch with 252 Atk | 252 Spe | 4 HP and a Jolly nature on Jirachi. This way you still have a decent rocks resist for choice locked Tyranitar as well.

Alright that is all I have to say for now, I encourage you to try out other rates on this thread as well. Good Luck!

 

[Juice!]

I like the team, it looks pretty decent. However, there's a few things I'd like to point out, and some that were pointed out that I agree with.

First, I dont' understand your Scizor's EV spread at all. Speed doesn't matter because Bullet Punch is priority, so is Pursuit (kind of, you get what I mean though) and if you U-turn second, that means your switch in comes in unharmed. The EV spread that Blazin Kickin Chicken provided, which was 248 HP/252 Atk/8 Spe is without a doubt the only correct spread for CB Scizor, so make that change.

Personally, I'd run Fire Punch over Roost on Dragonite, as since you are just running max attack and max speed with a Life Orb, it's not really bulky enough to Roost well. Yours looks like it wants to just set up and kill shit, not spend turns Roosting off LO recoil. With Dragon Claw + Fire Punch, you have perfect neutral coverage against everything except for Heatran, which Earthquake decimates. Not to mention with Fire Punch then Skarmory is going to eat a nasty, boosted super-effective hit if it wants to Whirlwind away your DD boosts. If you're set on using Roost, drop Life Orb for Leftovers, and run a spread of 252 HP/52 Atk/204 Spe, but keep in mind you are giving up a lot of your attacking power in order to obtain this bulk. In my opinion the offensive DD set is better, but use whatever suits your play.

I also agree with AB2 that Starmie would be better on your team than Suicune. Since you said one of your biggest problems was Infernape, Starmie is one of the best checks for the Ape. The set that AB2 posted is perfect, 4 attacks + Life Orb, and use that nature and EV spread. I think you'll find this helps you out a lot. Good luck with your team! =)

 

[Torniron]

I've actually considered getting a flygon in the past for this team, until I saw that awful ice weakness and having 2 revenge killers in a team isn't the best thing since 1 will usually get unused the whole match.

I've also changed Scizor's EV spread to 252HP, 252ATT, 4DEF. Thank you for that piece of advice [HP] Juan.

I've changed Celebi's EV spread to 252HP, 252DEF, 4 SpD. I actually never thought of this since it takes most attack quite easily but now I'm struggling with special attacks since alot of them can do up to half if there STAB and neutral so it might not be something that stays forever.

I've actually had a offensive suicune before but it was just doing something a starmie could do better so I decided on the other Resttalk moveset.

I can't really switch celebi to shaymin since celebi has better supportive options then shaymin (as far as I can see the most it has is leech seed) and as I mentioned before my team really needs that paralysis support.

I've actually got a starmie and tried for a few matches and it works amazing! It is such a good add on for my team to help my teams slower members, but I do miss suicune alot for it's walling abilitys cause I've gotta play very carefully with starmie. Also how you said swampert was set up fodder, I saw that in my first 5 matches and decided to put roar on it to prevent this from happening.

I had a long think on what to do with dragonite.. Should I get rid of the pure power and go with defence? I ended up staying defensive and switching it's item to leftovers mainly cause I don't have any wish support and with half my team having life orb's if I chose the offensive route, I would end up having alot of pokemon dieing (not so much heatran) before I want them to.
Thanks guy's for you help.:happybrain: Ehehee...

 

[Torniron]

Btw, Can you guy's suggest me some good lead's that would co-operate well with this team apart from jirachi because of it's fire weakness.

 

[Aerrow]

Hello. Your team looks pretty solid at this point, although I see a couple of changes that can be made which may be for the better. First of all, I really see no need for roar on Swampert, seeing as you're team does not focus on setting up multiple entry hazards. Instead, i think opting for either protect, to scout, or surf to help out with shuca berry Heatran would be best. Also, seeing as your team lacks a 'true' revenge killer and you use your choice band Scizor for said reason, opting for a choice scarf Scizor instead of the choice band one may be a beneficial change as in your description, you described Scizor's lackluster speed to be a let-down when it came to revenge killing with it. Using a choice scarf will not only helping you with the aforementioned, but will also help you against Pokemon like Rotom-A which would have been able to cripple Scizor through Will-O-Wisp as they would out speed, but with a choice scarf, Scizor is now the faster Pokemon and can eliminate Rotom-A through a well-timed pursuit. Lastly, I think you've written the EVs for Dragonite wrong as they have two mentions of investments in the HP stat; I think you mean to say 252 HP / 52 Atk / 204 Spe. Also, on the topic of Dragonite's EVs, I would recommend using the bulky EV spread you have now instead of the more offensive one, as by the time Dragonite is sent out, the rest of you team will have already weakened the core of the opponent's team. Good luck.

 

[Torniron]

Hello. Your team looks pretty solid at this point, although I see a couple of changes that can be made which may be for the better. First of all, I really see no need for roar on Swampert, seeing as you're team does not focus on setting up multiple entry hazards. Instead, i think opting for either protect, to scout, or surf to help out with shuca berry Heatran would be best. Also, seeing as your team lacks a 'true' revenge killer and you use your choice band Scizor for said reason, opting for a choice scarf Scizor instead of the choice band one may be a beneficial change as in your description, you described Scizor's lackluster speed to be a let-down when it came to revenge killing with it. Using a choice scarf will not only helping you with the aforementioned, but will also help you against Pokemon like Rotom-A which would have been able to cripple Scizor through Will-O-Wisp as they would out speed, but with a choice scarf, Scizor is now the faster Pokemon and can eliminate Rotom-A through a well-timed pursuit. Lastly, I think you've written the EVs for Dragonite wrong as they have two mentions of investments in the HP stat; I think you mean to say 252 HP / 52 Atk / 204 Spe. Also, on the topic of Dragonite's EVs, I would recommend using the bulky EV spread you have now instead of the more offensive one, as by the time Dragonite is sent out, the rest of you team will have already weakened the core of the opponent's team. Good luck.

I had protect on swampert before roar and I ended up geting set up on and having to sacrifce a team member just to get it down. Also I might try a choice scarf scizor and it will counter lucario's and really help since alot of the time scizor ends up almost dead and getting chewed up to stealth rocks. Thanks for pointing out that mistake and I just fixed it up.

 

[Tomahawk]

I don't see how you are MixApe weak. If it lacks Grass Knot, he won't have an easy time getting past Swampert and Starmie and if it lacks HP Ice, both Dragonite and Starmie wall it.

I suggest you replace Roar on Swampert with Protect. This allows you to scout the opponents move and gain some leftovers recovery.
Edit: Ninja'd

I also suggest you change the EVs spread of all of your Pokemon to their standard spread.