CLOSE COMBAT - peaked #13 with no weather involved

WECAMEASROMANS

Banned deucer.
This is my 5th gen standard team. It is very offensive, with three set up sweepers and a revenge killer. It also uses entry hazards to enforce OHKOs I previously could not get before. This team has been very successful for me, getting to #13 on the leaderboard with a rating of 1346 in two days. My team uses no weather at all unlike most of the other top teams out there. This proves that you do not need weather to be successful.

QUICK GLANCE




CLOSER LOOK


Deoxys-S @ Focus Sash
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 56 HP/200 ATK/252 SPE
Hasty nature (+spe, -def)
- Stealth Rock
- Spikes
- Ice beam
- Superpower

Deoxys is my lead. i chose this over the defense forme becuase of much higher speed, basically guaranteeing sr and at least one layer of spikes to be down from the get go. ice beam and superpower for attacking coverage, namely tyranitar and gliscor/landorus. many people don't expect both moves, so sometimes after i kill tyranitar they send out their Gliscor expecting to use it as SD bait, only to get destroyed. max speed, 200 atk to kill tyranitar, and the rest in HP for some bulk. this is my lead 99% of the time, as even if i am in a disadvantage i can get two entry hazards down. sr and spikes help my team greatly since it can ensure a lot of OHKOs.


Heatran @ Life Orb
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 4 HP/ 252 SPATK/ 252 SPE
Timid nature (+spe, - atk)
- Fire Blast
- Earth power
- Dragon pulse
- HP Grass

The 4th gen monster heatran. max speed and max spatk because it is an offensive mon, and can outspeed and deal a lot of damage to threats. timid nature to outspeed or at least tie with other heatrans, also beats neutral nature dragonite and kingdra so i can dragon pulse them. also outspeeds non scarfed rotom-W most of the time. fire blast and earth power are mandatory, dragon pulse is there so i can prevent dragonite from setting up from me. hp grass is for unsuspecting gastrodowns, quagsires, and swamperts. due to preview teams in 5th gen, if i see my opponent has a politoed or a rotom-w and i know they will switch it in, i will hp grass them as well on the switch. it 2HKOes politoed and OHKOes scarfed/specs rotom. bulky rotoms are outsped and 2HKOed regardless.


Azumarill @ Choice Band
Ability: Huge Power
EVs: 252 HP/ 252 ATK/ 4 SPE
Adamant nature (+ atk, - spatk)
- Aqua Jet
- Waterfall
- Ice punch
- Double Edge

Azumarill is my revenge killer. it can revenge kill a lot of threats in the fifth gen, as many of them are weak to water. Excadrill is the most notable. Also that fire butterfly poke. This thing is also my best bet to eliminate Gliscor right off the bat. max hp for bulk since this thing is not going to be outspeeding much and has priority anyway, max attack for max damge obviously, and 4 speed to outspeed blissey. aqua jet for revenge killing and priority, ice punch to catch latias and latios on the switch, double edge OHKOes rotom-w as they try to switch in on a water move. team preview clause really eases prediction a lot. waterfall is rarely used, but if i know my opponent is going to switch but i dont know to what, i will just use waterfall to deal a lot of damage to the switch in. In rain, waterfall 2HKOes Skarmory, so they cant roost off the damage even with lefties. superpower is not included here because my team has no trouble with ferrothorn at all, in fact it uses it as set up bait.


Salamence @ Life Orb
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 ATK/ 4 SPATK/ 252 SPE
Naive nature (+ spe, - spdef)
- Dragon Dance
- Outrage
- Earthquake
- Fire blast

Still the 4th gen offensive beast we all know in 5th gen. i originally had the mixmence here to break stall, but the DD mence proved to be much more useful to this team, since my three set up sweepers are all physical, and one can weaken the opponent's physical walls enough so the other two can have a field day. moves are standard, max atk and spe to utilize dragon dance to the fullest, 4 spatk to put some power in fire blast. naive nature is to outspeed other mences or at the worst tie with them. +1 outrage can do a lot of damge with entry hazards down.


Terrakion @ Life Orb
Ability: Justified
EVs: 4 HP/ 252 ATK/ 252 SPE
Jolly nature (+ spe, - spatk)
- Swords Dance
- Rock Polish
- Close Combat
- Stone Edge

The second of my trio of set up physical sweepers. pairing up SD Terrakion with SD Luke works extremely well, as since they both have the same checks/counters one can eliminate/weaken them enough so the other can break past it and sweep the team. most teams only prepare for one sword dancer, so they panic when i reveal the second one. rock polish for offensive teams, sd for stall teams, or whichever is neccessary for their team imo due to team preview. close combat is the main attack, but if their mon resists fighting i will just use stone edge to finish them off.
if i know they have a counter in their team i will just attack right away to weaken them.


Lucario @ Life Orb
Ability: Inner Focus
EVs: 4 HP/ 252 ATK/ 252 SPE
Adamant nature (+ atk, - spatk)
- Swords Dance
- Close Combat
- Extremespeed
- Ice Punch

This thing works wonders when paired up with Terrakion. both of them can repeatedly use STAB close combats to decimate the opponent. again, evs are obvious. max speed and max attack. adamant nature instead of jolly because i have priority anyways and the greater power is preferred. i originally had justified and crunch here, but gliscor proved to be too much of a bitch for both lucario and terrakion to take care of, so i slapped ice punch on lucario to surprise kill it so now their main fighting counter is gone. ice punch cannot be paired with justified so i changed it to inner focus.
 
You should change Life Orb to Lum Berry on Salamence because of Outrage and the fact that you already have 3 Life Orbers.

Entry hazards also gives you problems as every one besides Salamence is grounded, but since Salamence is an offensive one and the fact that it's weak to Stealth Rock, it won't be living long.
 
Right now, Jellicent can give you some serious problems. It can come in for free on most of your pokemon and burn them with Scald or WoW, effectively stopping your sweep. Heatran can absorb WoW, but gets maimed by Scald/Surf. Even if you manage to damage it before it burns you, he can just recover off the damage once your attack is halved.

To remedy this, I'd consider giving your Lucario Crunch back. Sure, Ice Punch destroys Gliscor, but I feel like you already have a decent counter in Azumarill. Jellicent, though probably a bit less common, is a much bigger problem for you right now.
 
ya change ice punch to crunch because gliscor is covered by azumarill and deoxys (which prolly wont be alive by this point but its still a counter)

Also i think you should change salamence to a life orb/expert belt latios because 4/6 guys are physical attackers, and 1/6 guys (excluding the 4/6) is only ment to setup spikes, stealth rock. With only one guy who can special attack you are going to have problems

Latios
move 1: Draco Meteor / Dragon Pulse
move 2: Surf
move 3: Hidden Power Fire
move 4: Recover / Thunderbolt / Psyshock
item: Life Orb / Expert Belt
nature: Timid
evs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe



This gives you some more versatility and if you go with thunderbolt it gives you another counter to the lingering jellicent along with surf for gliscor. i prefer draco meteor over dracon pulse but thats just me. Hidden power fire for more coverage.
 

franky

aka pimpdaddyfranky, aka frankydelaghetto, aka F, aka ef
is a Top Team Rater Alumnusis a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Top Contributor Alumnus
Hi,

This type of team requires the minimal changes because it has one synergy and totally depends on team match up. Since its offensive there isnt much to change expect trying out a couple of things. a lot of people pointed out the weakness to water-types like starmie and jellicent. your strategy is two-fold; either lucario helps terakion, or terakion helps lucario. you can try out a calm mind latios with the moveset calm mind / psycho shock / dragon pulse / surf with the evs 252 spa / 4 def / 252 spe with a timid nature over salamence. this helps you switch into terrakion (a huge threat), water-types and jellicent easily. the upsides with this is that, latios is pursuit-bait, which allows your fighting types to set up easy and sweep lategame.

as for other options, you can try out bullet punch over extremespeed on lucario to prevent terrakion on destroying your entire team. it also hits gengar for the ohko and the rare scarf tyranitar for the ohko. people mentioned crunch over ice punch, that could be an option, but you have latios to remedy this problem now. overall gl.
 

dragonuser

The only thing I look up to is the sky
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personally i run a dual screens deoxys -s
you just use predicction to see if they will attack from the phys/ sp spectrum and use light screen/ reflect. then you can easily set up at least two layers of spikes. as a fourth move I use taunt to stop others from setting up on me. The lack of attacking moves dont really affect me because I usually set up spikes till i die as it is my lead
 

IronBullet

Astronomy Domine
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Hey,

On such an offensive team like this there aren't many changes to consider since a lot itself depends on team match-up and good prediction. Latios would definitely be a good option to help out against Rotom-W, Jellicent and the like, while retaining the offensive nature of the team. However, I would actually recommend dropping Calm Mind for Recover, since it greatly aids its survivability against rain teams, and after Spikes and SR Latios gets all the KOs it needs. Dragon Pulse | Psyshock | Surf | Recover with a Life Orb should work well.

Consider using Air Balloon on Terrakion over Life Orb. You still get the 2HKO on Gliscor at +2, while with a Life Orb you fail to OHKO Gliscor which meant that you lost anyway. Air Balloon ensures your victory against Gliscor as long as Stone Edge doesn't miss. You dont lose out on any KOs, and you also gain valuable set up oppurtunities, such as on Excadrill, Landorus, and the like.

I would also seriously consider Crunch on Lucario since your team deals with Gliscor so well, and Crunch is important for getting those KOs on Jellicent and Reuniclus. Bullet Punch as mentioned by franky is very valuable against offensive teams, giving you a way to defeat Terrakion, Gengar and Scarftar.

Good luck!
 
Hi,

So your team looks pretty good. But theres some minor changes it could use, Heh everytime needs minor changes to be near perfect <_<

First off, I don't know whether or not but if HP grass still can ohko rotom-w without a life orb. Change the life orb to Air Balloon. Of course. If the life orb is needed then keep it. But I myself am not a fan of letting my pokemon die too early inbattle xD.

Second. Terrakion.
I would suggest changing his EV spread to one I made and use myself. Being

Terrakion @ Air Balloon
Ability: Justified
EVs: 52HP/ 252 ATK/ 204 SPE
Adamant nature (+ Atk, - Spatk)
- Swords Dance
- Rock Polish
- Close Combat
- Stone Edge
Changing it to this allows you to outspeed Excadrill in the sand after a rock polish. Also. With the given HP EV's. You beat gliscor. Since 52hp EVs lets you live a ice fang and a EQ. So you can swords dance and then 2HKO with stone edge.



Take care.
 
Hey lucas,

Your Deoxys-S lead lacks enough power to beat standard lead Tyranitar with 252 HP. With 200 Atk EVs, you only do 92.08% - 108.91% damage, which is a 53.84% chance of OHKO. I suggest moving 52 more EVs from HP to Atk, maxing out your Atk EVs. With max Atk EVs, Superpower will deal 96.04% - 113.86% damage, which is a 79.48% chance of OHKO.

You should invest more speed on your Azumarill so it can out speed standard Quiet/Sassy nature Tyranitar and Blissey, it only requires a bit more EVs, I believe it's worth it. Double Edge should also be replaced with Superpower so you can harm Ferrothorn, Tyranitar, Cloyster, etc. You don't really need want Double Edge as it will only deal recoil damage. Here's the new EVs set for Azumarill: 208 HP / 252 Atk / 48 Spe

I also agree with IB93 on using Air Balloon on Terrakion over Life Orb. Will not only help you against Gliscor but can also save you from other stuff like Excadrill, Nidoking, Mamoswine, etc. While it will also allow you to set up on something like Heatran which would be unable to harm you with Earth Power.

Also, the Terrakion set Veneration suggested is fine but I would max out Terrakion's Speed so you can out speed Mienshao, Zoroark, and Mismagius. And if you're in a risky position where you have to speed tie against Virizion, Infernape, Cobalion, or opposing Terrakion. So it's very important to max out its speed.

Your team is very weak to Jellicent as your Deoxys-S, Lucario, Terrakion (gets crippled by WoW and Stone Edge won't do much), Heatran (HP Grass won't do much), Azumarill, and Salamence (gets crippled by WoW), basically your whole team has problems to doing anything to it! Because of this, I strongly suggest replacing Ice Punch from Lucario for Crunch as IB93 suggested.

Good luck.
 
Erm the point of my set is to counter gliscor. Who by the looks of it will tank pretty much your whole team and beat them.

by the time mienshao is in.. (assuming there even is one.. nobody uses him anymore) youll already have a rock polish up. the point of the double dancer set is to force a switch.... and they normally ALWAYS go to gliscor if they have one.
 
Erm the point of my set is to counter gliscor. Who by the looks of it will tank pretty much your whole team and beat them.

by the time mienshao is in.. (assuming there even is one.. nobody uses him anymore) youll already have a rock polish up. the point of the double dancer set is to force a switch.... and they normally ALWAYS go to gliscor if they have one.
Adding 52 EVs in HP is not going to help you "counter" Gliscor. Earthquake from standard 0 EV Atk Gliscor does 69.44% - 82.41% damage. Whereas, if we give it 52 HP EVs, Earthquake would do 66.96% - 79.46%. I don't see anything vastly different. And a lot of people use Mienshao (it is OU). Not to mention, as I've stated before, you would want to out speed Zoroark and Mismagius (both fairly common). And speed tie against Virizion, Infernape, Cobalion, or opposing Terrakion.

It is more important to go with max speed over some insignificant bulk.
 
Adding 52 EVs in HP is not going to help you "counter" Gliscor. Earthquake from standard 0 EV Atk Gliscor does 69.44% - 82.41% damage. Whereas, if we give it 52 HP EVs, Earthquake would do 66.96% - 79.46%. I don't see anything vastly different. And a lot of people use Mienshao (it is OU). Not to mention, as I've stated before, you would want to out speed Zoroark and Mismagius (both fairly common). And speed tie against Virizion, Infernape, Cobalion, or opposing Terrakion.

It is more important to go with max speed over some insignificant bulk.
Well, EQ does that much. But when you give Terra that Air Balloon like he suggested, Gliscor has to do (nothing if he lacks an other attacking move) Ice Fang. This doesnt do that much, and this way you can survive the next Earthquake.

I think thats the way you gotta think ^^

This strategy gets totally wrecked by any previous attacks, Stealth Rocks and Switch predictions. But hey, if it works, it works xD
 
Well, EQ does that much. But when you give Terra that Air Balloon like he suggested, Gliscor has to do (nothing if he lacks an other attacking move) Ice Fang. This doesnt do that much, and this way you can survive the next Earthquake.

I think thats the way you gotta think ^^

This strategy gets totally wrecked by any previous attacks, Stealth Rocks and Switch predictions. But hey, if it works, it works xD
Terrakion doesn't need the extra bulk to assure itself of living Earthquake after Ice Fang.

Ice Fang on no HP EV'd Terrakion does: 15.43% - 18.21%
Ice Fang on 52 HP Terrakion does: 14.88% - 17.56%

Again, there is no vast difference, just about a 1% difference. Not worth losing the valuable speed.
 

Ojama

Banned deucer.
Heu Lucas !

Nice Team there with a great synergy and very offensive, but there a major threat for this team, ScarfTerrakion. This thing can just destroy your team, ok you have Salamence, but if Stealth Rock are up, then Salamence is just 2HKO, hmm what I'm saying, he just need to revenge kill because you aren't faster after a Dragon Dance. So I'll suggest you to play Reuniclus over Lucario who can be very useful, especially against Excadrill or Tornadus / Thundurus who can destroy your team. So use this thing like that

Reuniclus@Life Orb
-Trick Room
-Psychic
-Focus Blast
-Shadow Ball
252 Hp / 252 SAtk / 4 Def

Then I'll suggest you to run Air Balloon on Terrakion because it can help you against Gliscor, or Excadrill.

GL with this Team !
 
Everybody is saying stuff about switching Salamence because there are too many physical sweepers in this team. Ojama points out that Reuniclus could be used instead of Lucario as a special attacker (i'm guessing), but you're all forgetting Lucario can perfectly BE the special attacker of this team, without losing the utility it has with Terrakion, as he can practically run the same set he has physically, but specially.
Here's what I mean:

NP-Lucario@Life Orb
252 Sp.Atk/252 Spe/4 HP
Modest
-Nasty Plot
-Aura Sphere
-Dark Pulse/Shadow Ball (seriously, THIS is the way to kill jellicent)
-Vacuum Wave

This is a great set im using, I'm actually trying to build a team around NP Luke, but I'm still failing xD. Anyways, NP is to launch your special attack sky-high, AuraBall combo is practically unresisted (a more reliable FocusBall combo) and Vacuum wave is a great special attack.

This makes so much sense to me, while nobody seemed to see the fact that the perfect Jellicent counter is here, in Luke, without losing its utility with Terrakion and adding a great special attacker to the team.

Alright, that's all for now.

I hope i helped,

Cap'n
 

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