XY NU cinema

[ryan]

cinema

intro​

This is a team I made after I got some inspiration from ium to try out Choice Band Flareon with Healing Wish support. Healing Wish is one of my favorite moves in the game, and with the introduction of Flare Blitz to its movepool, Flareon seemed like a really fun Pokemon to use in NU this generation. Basically, this is my attempt to make a fun team that is still successful and doesn't use bog standard shit.

I haven't peaked anything with this team because laddering makes me nauseated, but I have played quite a bit with the team in various PS tournaments and against friends, including against tennisace earlier today where he haxed me with a trash set. Anyways, I'm sharing the team now so that other people can try out some of these Pokemon and appreciate them as much as I do.

the team​

Flareon @ Choice Band
Ability: Flash Fire
252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
Flare Blitz / Superpower / Quick Attack / Baton Pass

I could watch you for a lifetime
You're my favorite movie​

NU has a ton of really powerful Fire-types, from Magmortar to Typhlosion to Pyroar, and I'd never even considered using Flareon before ium suggested it to me. But Flareon is really incredible. With Flash Fire, it offers up a fantastic immunity to Fire, which helps check the aforementioned Fire-types of NU, and with the addition of Flare Blitz to its movepool, it finally has a spam-able STAB move to break through opposing teams.

Everything on Flareon is really straightforward. Flare Blitz rips through pretty much everything, including things that resist it. To give you an idea of its power, particularly after a Flash Fire boost, here are some cute calcs:

252+ Atk Choice Band Flash Fire Flareon Flare Blitz vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Seismitoad: 209-246 (50.4 - 59.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
252+ Atk Choice Band Flash Fire Flareon Flare Blitz vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Feraligatr: 242-285 (77.5 - 91.3%) -- 31.3% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
252+ Atk Choice Band Flash Fire Flareon Flare Blitz vs. 240 HP / 0 Def Dry Skin Parasect: 2908-3424 (905.9 - 1066.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Superpower covers Rock-types, but you'll pretty much never click it because it loses so much momentum if you mispredict, while Flare Blitz does loads to most resists not named Regirock or 4x resists anyways. It doesn't really need (or get) any other coverage, so Quick Attack is used for some nice priority and to help finish off Slurpuff after it takes a hit setting up. Baton Pass helps grab some momentum if the opponent has a counter to Flareon but you need to pivot it in against a Fire-type. Sleep Talk is fine in this slot as well.

Mesprit @ Life Orb
Ability: Levitate
252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
Psychic / Healing Wish / Energy Ball / Ice Beam

I never know what's comin'
Forever fascinated
​

Having already added Flareon to my team, it was time to add the Healing Wish support. The most common—and pretty much only—user of the move in NU is Scarf Lilligant, but I really don't like that set because Grass is a terrible type of move to lock into and it already outspeeds the shit it needs to anyways. So instead, I went with Life Orb Mesprit, which is incredibly powerful and has the coverage to take on the things that Flareon hates to.

Aside from Psychic and Healing Wish, which are obligatory moves for this set, I'm running Energy Ball and Ice Beam. These two moves pretty much have the best coverage out of Mesprits movepool. Energy Ball takes on all the things that Flareon hates—bulky Rock- and Water-types, including Seismitoad, Omastar, Carracosta, etc. Meanwhile, Ice Beam hits things such as Xatu which resist the rest of the set. Mesprit is an interesting "replacement," if you will, for Sigilyph, as a powerful offensive Psychic-type with killer coverage, and it really should see a lot more usage than it does.

Kricketune @ Focus Sash
Ability: Swarm
252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
X-Scissor / Knock Off / Sticky Web / Taunt

Hope you don't stop runnin' to me
Cause I'll always be waiting​

When I decided to use offensive Flareon with Healing Wish support, I knew immediately that I needed some way to compensate for Flareon's low Speed. Offensive teams don't have much liberty to switch around, which is a problem when you're using something as slow as Flareon. Having realized this, I decided I wanted to use Sticky Web support, and I really don't think there's a better Sticky Web setter in NU than Kricketune.

Despite being a terrible gimmick Pokemon in past generations, in XY, Kricketune has a great niche—barring Smeargle, which is OU, it is the only Pokemon with access to both Taunt and Sticky Web. This allows offensive teams to prevent hazards from coming down early game, which can offer some pretty huge momentum when the opponent goes to set up hazards later on. Knock Off is the best move in the game, and it offers you a way to hit Xatu hard. Swarm-boosted X-Scissor is still pretty weak, but it can actually deal damage in the rare situations where you have a spare turn. You can try out Endeavor as well, but I rarely find myself wishing I had it. Defensive Pokemon can rarely bring Kricketune to its Sash immediately, and offensive Pokemon outspeed it.

Sandslash @ Leftovers
Ability: Sand Rush
EVs: 128 HP / 252 Atk / 128 Spe
Adamant Nature
Stealth Rock / Earthquake / Knock Off / Rapid Spin

You are my cinema
I could watch you forever
​

With two Rock weaknesses, I knew I wanted a Rock resist, but I also kind of wanted Rapid Spin support for Flareon, whose switches would be limited if hazards were ever set. I was really hesitant to use Cryogonal because it clashed a ton with my team and didn't offer a Rock resist, but instead yet another Rock weakness. Armaldo and Torkoal fell in the same boat, even though I don't care for them anyways. So I decided on Sandslash, who offered all of a Rock resist, a Stealth Rock setter, and a Rapid Spin user. You won't utilize Rapid Spin too often, but having that support is really nice.

The Armaldo of XY, Sandslash has a pretty bad reputation as a Rapid Spin user that carried over from BW RU. That's because it was shit. It had no way to beat spinblockers, and the only important resist it offered was Rock, which wasn't that hard to cover with other things. But as an offensive Rapid Spin user in XY, it's great. With Knock Off, the most broken move in the game, it can finally take out the Ghost-types that blocked its Rapid Spin previously. The EVs on this set are to outrun Jolly Sawk after Sticky Web, but you can use more bulk if you want to rely on Sandslash to take hits a bit better.

Spiritomb @ Leftovers
Ability: Infiltrator
EVs: 240 HP / 252 Atk / 16 Spe
Adamant Nature
Shadow Sneak / Will-O-Wisp / Sucker Punch / Return

Action, thriller
I could watch you forever
​

At this point, I had Sticky Web and Stealth Rock support, and I knew I wanted to keep these up as well as I possibly could. I was also lacking quite a bit in fast attackers, so my options were pretty much Scarf Rotom-N or Spiritomb for this slot. I like Spiritomb's ability to spread around burns to help me pivot more easily, so I went this route. Spiritomb also offers a great check to most offensive Normal-types, and it can comfortably take a few hits from lots of things because of its typing, which is something that I think is really necessary on Sticky Web teams.

The set is pretty straight forward. It's standard offensive Spiritomb but with Return instead of Pursuit. As Pursuit support really isn't necessary at all for this team to do well, I wanted a more reliable move to click. Shadow Sneak is fairly weak against neutral targets, and spamming Sucker Punch is really unreliable, so I went with Return, which, while not extraordinarily powerful, gets the job done. Return also allows me to do solid damage to Slurpuff if it tries to set up on me, which can make the difference between winning and losing a game to it.

Lilligant @ Life Orb
Ability: Chlorophyll
252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
Giga Drain / Nature Power / Sleep Powder / Quiver Dance

You are a cinema
A Hollywood treasure​

At this point, I added Specs Pyroar to the team because I hadn't used it and thought it might be fun for a Fire spam style of team. But after playing a couple games with it, I realized that my team had three Water weaknesses with an impressive no resistances. So I decided I'd try out Quiver Dance Lilligant for a few reasons. One was that I figured people would probably think it was a Scarf variant with Healing Wish while playing against me considering the Flareon and my team structure. Another was that I hadn't used it yet, and it sounded like a lot of fun! Also, it outspeeds even the obscure Jolly Feraligatr, which helps me check it more easily.

The set for Lilligant is pretty straightforward. I wanted to run Timid, again, for the rare Jolly Feraligatr, which outspeeds Modest Lilligant by one point, as well as to help out against Choice Scarf Pokemon that were immune to Sticky Web, including Rotom-F, Rotom-S, Mesprit, which I really didn't want revenging Lilligant at +1. Plus, with Life Orb, you don't really need Modest anyways. Nature Power is really cool because it's not Hidden Power, which is weak as fuck and always misses out on shit. You miss out on Steel-types and like Gourgeist and Haunter with this set, but that's basically it. You also get to dodge Shiftry's Sucker Punch with Nature Power, which is sick.

Love you just the way you are
My cinema, my cinema
​

threatlist​

• Hax
• Misplays

summary​

This team is really fun, and you should mess around with it a bit. As an offensive team, there are some things that you have to play around a bit, but as long as you focus on keeping up momentum and keeping your Sticky Web set, you should do relatively fine with it. Importable can be found here.

 

[Raseri]

hi treecko this team is the best, but i think your Kricketune set could be better. Personally, I run


Kricketune @ Focus Sash
Ability: Technician
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Sticky Web
- Taunt
- Endeavor
- Bug Bite

Bug Bite is a bit weaker than X-Scissor when you're in swarm range, but is stronger when you still have HP, and it has the nifty side effect of eating berrys. So you can steal a slurpuff berry or something. It wont usually come in handy, but rarely it will be useful, which is why I think its better than X-Scissor. Idk how you find Endeavor to not be useful, I find it to be incredibly useful. It can let you bring down SR users after you taunt them, which is great for letting Flareon spam Flare Blitz more. Cause predicting = bad.

this is still a great team though :)

 

[tennisace]

mad@pyroar@scarf

it's a rly good team imo, not many suggestions i have. i disagree with Raseri on the kricketune set, i think Knock Off is more important than a bug move or endeavor for utility purposes (and like you said, smackin cheeky xatu). a neat option though i've been meaning to try on it though is perish song to make sure people switch out / act as like a last resort vs a setup sweeper if you have sash intact. may not seem like the greatest strategy in the world but hey, how many times do you end up using x-scissor anyway?

also i think flareon should use celebrate > baton pass because flareon is always celebrating now that it got flare blitz :D

 

[ium]

[19:52:08] <ium> felix
[19:52:10] <ium> want a
[19:52:11] <ium> fun tip
[19:52:20] <@Felix> probably not
[19:52:21] <ium> choice band flareon + scarf healing wish lilligant
[19:52:22] <@Felix> but go for it
[19:52:22] <ium> USE IT
[19:52:23] <ium> USE IT
[19:52:23] <ium> USE IT

stealing ideas without permission .______.

omastar and barbaracle are potential mid- to late-game threats that get their one shot at setup against flareon or in some cases spiritomb. unfortunately, +1 barbaracle is still kind of fast where even something simple like sceptile over lilligant wouldn't work, but there's always the choice scarf rotom. swellow and obscure flying-types like swanna are also threatening given their immunity to sticky web and the fact that you may be prioritizing setting that up with kricketune over stealth rock with sandslash, so rotom helps there too. otherwise, going back to choice scarf on lilligant roughly does the same if spiritomb needs to be kept for a little bulk on the team

 

[ryan]

[19:52:22] <ium> USE IT
[19:52:23] <ium> USE IT
[19:52:23] <ium> USE IT

stealing ideas without permission .______.

yeah, I'll test out Rotom-N. I don't really care for it, but you're right that it would help out with some things that I have to play around quite a bit.

 

[Brawlfest]

Honestly this is a really solid team but I simply feel that if Sticky Web doesn't go up, and setup sweeper will cleanly 6-0 you with little problem due to a lack of a revenge killer. Spiritomb will often not be able to KO, and at that point you really have to just say GG. There isn't really much to change, but the following moves are what I would make.

To start with, your team's crux, Kricketune, I feel simply isn't that good. There is little to no reason to run it over Leavanny, who is faster, stronger, bulkier, carries a STAB to deter common SR users such as Rhydon and Seismitoad, and has Magic Coat to prevent Qwilfish or Ferroseed from getting much up either. It can also deal damage in a much more efficient manner should it come down to it, and I just feel that overall it has much less downsides than Kricketune as a Sticky Web lead and gets it up more effectively and efficiently.

Minor Changes:
Mesprit: To deal with the problem of Setup Sweepers, I reccomend switching Mesprit to Modest Scarf with Trick > Energy Ball, as you will still be able to pack a punch, but you will be able to quickly use your Healing Wish when needed with the scarf, but more importantly keep the team intact against Setup sweepers even if sticky web falls.

Nature Power Lilligant is sick.
_______

Leavanny @ Focus Sash
Ability: Swarm
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Leaf Blade
- Knock Off / X-Scissor
- Magic Coat
- Sticky Web

 

[ryan]

There's a ton of reason to use Kricketune over Leavanny, and I explained it in my RMT. It has Taunt, which, unlike Magic Coat, actually stops hazard setters. It also has Knock Off, which Leavanny doesn't because Knock Off is illegal with Sticky Web on it. Leavanny doesn't get up Sticky Web more effectively. They both use the move, which means that they are equally effective in getting up Sticky Web. It doesn't do it more efficiently either, as it takes both of them one turn to do it.

I understand your reasoning behind using Scarf Mesprit, but the power that Life Orb offers and the ability to switch moves are simply necessary for this team. Without the ability to switch moves, you give way too many free switches to things that you should be able to take out. I'd be more willing to use ium's suggestion of Scarf Rotom-N to handle the setup sweeper problem than altering Mesprit, which is an essential part of the team as it is, though between Flareon and Spiritomb, few things can outright sweep me anyways. Energy Ball is also absolutely necessary, as it gives my team a way to break down bulky Water- and Rock-types that Flareon hates.

 

[g]

Garbage team destroyed by Scarf Pyroar.
0/10 would use in a serious tournament

Anyway i'd change lefties on sandslash to Earth Plate/Soft Sand as they guarantee the 2hko on physically defensive Vileplume with EQ after rocks and some residual (or without lefties). You also 2HKO stuff like Audino and Lickilicky reliably after rocks so that's something to consider

 

[Blast]

Scarf Rotom does help you against birds and miscellaneous faster stuff, but it leaves you massively open to Dark-types--Shiftry in particular can capitalize on it and either Defog away your Sticky Web or just kill something with Knock Off / Leaf Storm. Dark-types in general are pretty threatening since they threaten your whole team with Knock Off and Sucker Punch if they can get in. I guess you could try out something like SD and / or 4 attacks Shiftry over Lilligant? It's not the most reliable Dark resist in the world, but it's at least something, and it can still maintain an answer to Feraligatr and such (esp. if you run +Speed natures). 4 attacks variants should probably run either Explosion or Low Kick in the last slot, the former for physical walls and the latter for Pawniard / other Shiftry.

 

[Punchshroom]

Kewl, a fellow Web team (I guess)!

There's not really a whole lot I can recommend, aside from trying to patch up Sticky Web's crippling weakness to Flying-types (Scyther is giant asshole, especially if it Swords Dances), but that would quite drastically alter your team and may end up provoking your Water weakness, so I'm uncertain on how to really improve this team atm. Perhaps a Jynx can help to alleviate your Water weakness, while maintaining sick offensive presence with Webs.

Jynx @ Life Orb
Ability: Dry Skin
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Lovely Kiss
- Ice Beam
- Psyshock
- Focus Blast

Jynx especially benefits from Sandslash's hazard removal, and complements your Water-weak Pokemon defensively: Sandslash can switch into Rock moves while Flareon can switch into Fire attacks. On top of that, Jynx is incredibly self sufficient with Webs down, putting obstacles to sleep so she can blast away at them. Jynx does clash with Mesprit offensively though. I'm sure there are other Water resists worth looking for, but none tear up as much ass as Jynx does.


Meanwhile, I can suggest reconsidering Leavanny over Kricketune again. No, not Brawlfest's set cos he's a dumbass that uses illegal Leavannys. While Kricketune has Taunt to prevent hazards from being set down, Leavanny has STAB Leaf Storm which prevents most SR users from walking again. I know that Taunt Kricketune does stop hazards nicely, the fact that you have a Sandslash makes me feel it isn't too necessary.

Leavanny @ Focus Sash
Ability: Overcoat
EVs: 220 Atk / 36 SpA / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
- Sticky Web
- Magic Coat
- Leaf Storm
- Shadow Claw

Leaf Storm easily OHKOes Rhydon and Sandslash (which Leaf Blade does not) while also easily disposing of Seismitoad, especially Timid Seismitoads, and smashing things like Qwilfish and Regirock hard, and those happen to be good Flareon stops. For this reason, you may run way more SpA EVs than listed here, though watch out should you not be able to 2HKO 252 HP Xatus or w/e :P. Magic Coat's main use is to prevent Dittos from Webbing up your own team, although your use of Sandslash does lessen its need; cockblocking lead Qwilfish is still funny as hell though. Unfortunately Shadow Claw has to be the attack of choice in order to deal with Xatu (why the hell can you not learn Infestation???). And hey, Leavanny happens to resist Water (although Leavanny does not survive long at all), so that is something.

 

[ryan]

I'm still not using Leavanny, though your set is certainly better.

 

[Brawlfest]

Been taking another look at the team, and I feel that flying types could be kind of annoying. They avoid the Sticky Web drop, and unresistingly spam their powerful attacks against the rest of your team, with two pokemon even being weak to said typing. It might be interesting to try Wallbreaker Archeops over Flareon, as it can resist flying spam and help to beat most flying types. On top of that, it still offers a check to fire types, and more importantly acts as an equally good wallbreaker except with the capability of not being choiced locked, having better coverage, being worn down less, etc. Just a thought! [You could run Naughty > Naive if you want since you have Sticky Web support, but I prefer Naive]

Just a thought Treecko ^.^
_______

Archeops @ No Item / Life Orb
Ability: Defeatist
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
- Stone Edge
- Earth Power / Heat Wave
- Acrobatics / Knock Off / U-Turn
- Roost

 

[Arcticblast]

I don't play NU but using Archeops for its resistances sounds like a really shitty idea

Treecko n_n

 

[Brawlfest]

I don't play NU but using Archeops for its resistances sounds like a really shitty idea

Treecko n_n

We aren't using it for its resistances, but simply because it at least can outspeed and check said threats. Wallbreaker Archeops punches holes slightly more efficiently than Flareon as well due to the ability to go mixed, having high offensive stats as is, as well as great coverage options. It does have bad defenses, but its solid typing means that it can force out or OHKO the fire and flying types it does check.