The Dark Horse Project IV

My glicko is currently 1848 with a deviation of 78, 18 won, 6 losses ( All of them when I was still testing). I'm going to ladder more with Wobbuffet. He's incredible, letting all of my sweepers set-up and revengekilling scarfers.

Pokemon Showdown! Username: Daler's Return
Hall of Fame Standing: None yet.
Dark Horse Pokemon Currently Working With: Mandibuzz (and abomasnow)
Current Ladder Standing on Pokemon Showdown!: None yet.

Wow guys, congrats to everyone that made it into the Hall of Fame! Many interesting sets around; I hope to be able to find some time and test at least some of them!

Update:

Current rank: 2178 points (~24th)
Battles: 19 wins, 2 losses
Pokemon: Cobalion

I made it



and w/l record for good measure: ou 2025 92 2131 ± 80 (provisional) 27 4 0

I started out with just stoutland but my teambuilding had me end up with two other dark horses as i went along.



Hippowdon @ Leftovers
Trait: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 HP / 244 Def / 12 SDef
Impish Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Slack Off
- Roar

Hippowdon has been really impressive for me so far in this OU metagame, ive used hippowdon, and know just how bulky it is. Hippowdon served as the physical wall of my team and also as my extra sand setter (i took a lot of inspiration from Euthanasia). Hippowdon was also my main switch in to scizor due to its ability to take multiple hits and recover them all off in the end. Stealth Rock is essential to any team, and with hippowdon on my side, i was free to run rocks on it and run a much more effective tyranitar set, a choice band. Hippo also hits very hard for a defensive pokemon, and it was more than capable of taking 40% or so off of a switch in in one go. Roar was essential to my success, i mean, i could revenge kill most of the special sweepers with stoutland, but a few of the physical sweepers can take a return and just knock it out, it also helped rack up entry hazard damage :3. Between hippo and ttar, i really dont think i ever lost the weather war tbh, lol. Overall, hippowdon should be more solidly OU, its great bulk and ability to phaze/set rocks as well as recover its hp ensures that sand will stay up during the majority of the match. A great choice for any sand team.

All Esca Must Die (Stoutland) @ Choice Band
Trait: Sand Rush
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spd
Adamant Nature
- Return
- Superpower
- Wild Charge
- Fire Fang (would have used crunch but lol TLC, it actually came in handy vs gene and scizor)

The pokemon i originally intended to build around, i chose to use stoutland due to a combination of lol TLC and the fact that i thought the combination of good bulk, usable attack, and sand rush would really help out a sand offense team. I was correct, stoutland was an absolute beast when i played him correctly, in sand rush, it hits 518 speed, more than enough to revenge kill pretty much the entire tier. Add on the choice band and a strong STAB attack, and stoutland is more deadly than the average scarfed pokemon. There were times where i could wear down the opponents return resist, and then just plow through the opponent's team without a problem thanks to the residual damage from SR+sandstorm over the course of the match. the main problem i had with stoutland during my ladder run is that he was pretty much dead weight if sand wasnt up, i mean i had two sand setters so that usually didnt happen, but if my opponent got rain up and sent in a faster pokemon, stoutland was forced out. the other flaw was that while 100 attack is good, it isnt haxorus level power, so stoutland usually needed a little bit of residual damage to perform its late game sweep. Other than those two minor setbacks, im pretty sure stoutland has potential in OU, and it would probably be a good addition to any sand offense team you have.



Celebi @ Leftovers
Trait: Natural Cure
EVs: 176 HP / 152 SAtk / 180 Spd
Modest Nature
- Leaf Storm
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- U-turn
- Recover

while i was building my team, i was kind of at a loss as to what to make my last pokemon, i figured out that despite the fact that i was carrying a Lati@s, it wasnt enough to stop incoming rain/volt switches on its own. So i added celebi to help out with this problem. I tried a few sets and eventually ended up using navi, and i can surely say im very happy with the results. Thanks to a combination of its good bulk, natural cure, and scald resist, celebi could easily come in on all the bulky waters i faced (and ferro/forry too, lol). From there, i could either fire off a leaf storm and devastate whatever came in, or i could predict a switch to something like heatran and u-turn to an appropriate counter. Celebi functioned as the "glue" of my team, taking out pokemon that would threaten my team otherwise. ESPECIALLY POLITOED, celebi was a big part of beating down the many rain teams that i faced on the ladder, and grabbed me some momentum every time they sent in Politoed thanks to its ability to use leaf storm to force it out, and then get me a free switch with u-turn. Celebi was also my main stop to breloom, and played a big role in luring in the bug/steels for a KO with hp fire. With Recover, celebi could easily perform all of these roles in one match if you played correctly! Ive heard some people say that celebi sucks in this metagame, and i would beg to differ, it was really good for me when i used it, and i dont think any pokemon could possibly fit my team better.


How did you choose your Dark Horse Pokemon for this project? What lead you to choose the Pokemon you did? Did you have regrets or were you happy with your selection?


I already talked about this in my comments about the individual pokemon but ill TL;DR it here.

for stoutland i mainly did it because of this

jokes aside, i mainly chose stoutland because i honestly think he deserves more love in OU, hes a very good revenge killer and late game cleaner in sand, and its a very unconventional, but effective option on offensive sand teams. I used him a lot during BW1 and with the addition of superpower to his movepool in BW2 he only got better! so thats how i decided to use stoutland.

The other two came from things that i needed while building my team, i needed a sand setter and bulky stealth rock setter in the form of hippowdon, and i needed a "glue" pokemon and water/electric/fighting resist in the form of celebi, i also thought celebi would help me against rain teams if i played correctly.



How did you go about building a team for your Dark Horse Pokemon? Which kinds of teammates did you consider? What factors contributed to the team you created?

Well, i was using stoutland, so i knew that i would pretty much have to run a sand team, this led me to run a tyranitar on my team, but after hearing about the deadly strategy of u-turning out of ttar and going to dugtrio to win the weather war, i decided that i would need hippodown to both take u-turns and be a backup weather setter, it also freed up ttar to use a different set, such as choice band. I was mainly inspired to add an extra sand setter by Euthanasia, which my team is very similar to. then i added celebi for reasons i explained above, and also added a wallbreaking core of latios and terrakion, terrakion for a genesect check, and latios mainly as a filler to help out with things such as keldeo.


Do you think it is more difficult or less difficult to ladder with a Dark Horse Pokemon? Why? Does the element of surprise play a factor in your battles? Is it easier to fight with a "highly used"" team or with Pokemon that are less common?

i dont know if it affected the difficulty of ladder, but i do know that laddering with dark horse pokemon makes laddering in OU more fun, and the only reason i ever play OU is to try and get away from my main tier, RU, and use some silly gimmicks for fun. Stoutland is fun and TLC approved, so i was like hey why not.


(For Hall of Fame members only) How did you reach the Hall of Fame? Was it easy or difficult? Did having a Dark Horse Pokemon on your team benefit you? What advice would you give to those laddering with Dark Horse Pokemon?

reaching the hall of fame wasnt two difficult for me either this time or the last time when i used virizion, im not sure if having a dark horse pokemon made it easier for me to ladder competitively, but it helped me not get bored of using a cookie cutter team on the way up. The advice i would give to other people using dark horse pokemon is to just...... have fun, thats all there is to it for me, i play pokemon to have fun, and im usually at the top of my game when im having fun, whenever i want to achieve a goal, i try to make it as fun as possible =).

im going to see if i can get a higher ranking later, stoutland is pretty fun to use :3.


EDIT:

DECAY GAVE ME PLATINUM GG

Pokemon Showdown! Username: Sereno José
Hall of Fame Standing: None
Dark Horse Pokemon Currently Working With: Deoxys-D, Heracross, Machamp
Current Ladder Standing on Pokemon Showdown!: None yet.

Yo Molk, how did you feel about using SDef Celebi in this metagame where Scizor/Genesect/Tornadus-t are everywhere? I've found it to be extremely underwhelming myself, but I suppose if your team had a solid answer for the 3 threats I listed above it could do alright. Glad to see you're using U-Turn, getting Stoutland in for free makes winning easy for your team.

I really love random decay

Set I used

Kyurem @ Leftovers
Trait: Pressure
EVs: 56 HP / 252 SAtk / 20 SDef / 180 Spd
Timid Nature
- Ice Beam
- Earth Power
- Roost
- Substitute

This is easy to explain: Ice Beam+Earth Power for amazing coverage, Sub to shield Kyurem for revenge killers and set up on a lot of mons thanks to its amazing bulk, Roost for maximum survival and do the same thing for long. Roost also helps to outstall Ferrothorn's offensive moves.

Evs are also quite simple. Enough speed to outspeed unscarfed max speed Timid Rotom-W and set a sub easily against it, 56 hp gives 101 subs while giving me the option for extra sub, it also helps in the rare case Kyurem gets ricked a Choice Item and gives it another switch when Stealth Rock is up, max sp.A because Kyurem must be strong. Sp.def was leftovers after I got everything Kyurem wanted.

How did you choose your Dark Horse Pokemon for this project? What lead you to choose the Pokemon you did? Did you have regrets or were you happy with your selection?

I just wanted a dragon that could survive easily against Genesect while having a way to heal itself. I also picked Kyurem because it is incredibly bulky and able to beat some of rain and sun most dangerous members such as Tornadus-T and Venusaur by itself as long as it is healthy enough(read as: avoid stealth rock damage/find something to safely set a sub against and roost). And because stalling Ferrothorn's offensive moves feels great.


Forgot the best reason: Wanted to prove Kyurem can be good without needing to be with Abomasnow.


How did you go about building a team for your Dark Horse Pokemon? Which kinds of teammates did you consider? What factors contributed to the team you created?

Stuff that could beat the Pink Blobs, take on Scizor and Breloom, a way to revenge faster dragons, defeat Keldeo, and stuff to beat Tyranitar. It was that easy to find its partners.


Do you think it is more difficult or less difficult to ladder with a Dark Horse Pokemon? Why? Does the element of surprise play a factor in your battles? Is it easier to fight with a "highly used"" team or with Pokemon that are less common?

short version: I almost always use Kyurem when playing OU and I do similar things in the other tiers I play, so playing with underrated and effective mons is quite easy for me.


(For Hall of Fame members only) How did you reach the Hall of Fame? Was it easy or difficult? Did having a Dark Horse Pokemon on your team benefit you? What advice would you give to those laddering with Dark Horse Pokemon?

It was quite easy, all I had to do was slightly edit a team I used to get to ~1850 before the ladders were reset.

Considering I won some games only because I had Kyurem, I would say it always helped when I needed it.

My advice is simple: Have fun and enjoy proving your dark horse should be used more.




bs molk doing this first with celebi

Lavos Spawn said:

Yo Molk, how did you feel about using SDef Celebi in this metagame where Scizor/Genesect/Tornadus-t are everywhere? I've found it to be extremely underwhelming myself, but I suppose if your team had a solid answer for the 3 threats I listed above it could do alright. Glad to see you're using U-Turn, getting Stoutland in for free makes winning easy for your team.

Click to expand...

that wasnt a specially defensive celebi, that was 180 speed actually, it outspeeds up to neutral base 90s without much trouble, i guess the PS format was a bit confusing, lol.

Since Lady Alex used Kingdra does it even matter how high I get with Kingdra if I am using him as my Dark Horse? Because currently I am using him and I am at 2217 and ranked 22 on the Ladder.

yeah, you can't hall-of-fame with kingdra (this month) once someone else has gotten there. good achievement regardless, but such is the structure of the project. don't worry though, you still have the rest of october to switch to another dark horse and achieve victory with another mon

oh and er ace, i can't find your registration post in this thread... might wanna do that before you start laddering with another mon =P

Finally made it on the leader board.
Ranking


Sharpedo @ Life Orb
Ability: Speed Boost
Nature: Adamant
EVs: 4 Hp / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
-Waterfall
-Crunch
-Ice Fang
-Protect

The Team


Sharpedo summary
I'm really surprised more people aren't using Sharpedo. With An attack stat of 372 backed by Life Orb, Anything that doesn't resist a rain boosted Waterfall is pretty much OKHOed. Whats even better is that with Speed Boost, Sharpedo is impossible to revenge kill without priority. however Sharpedo is very frail and has a short life span due to Life Orb and hazards. For these reasons Sharpedo is best used as a late game cleaner. To utilize Sharpedo to the fullest, Priority users must be eliminated and bulky water/grass types should be fairly weakened. Also Sharpedo appreciates entry hazards and Drizzle support to make sweeps easier.

The biggest threats to Sharpedo I have seen are: Conkledurr, Breloom, and Ferrothorn.
Conkeldurr and breloom are in the same Boat being able to OHKO Sharpedo with Mach punch. Ferrothorn can take all of Sharpedo's attacks and shorten its life span by setting up entry hazards and hurting it with Iron Barbs. The best way I have found to Deal with them is to Spam Hurricane to Hurt them and soften up switch ins.

Overall Sharpedo is a boss and deserves way more usage.

Molk said:

that wasnt a specially defensive celebi, that was 180 speed actually, it outspeeds up to neutral base 90s without much trouble, i guess the PS format was a bit confusing, lol.

Click to expand...

Oh hey I misread Speed for SDef, my bad. Running on three hours of sleep here. Yeah I guess fast Celebi would make a lot more sense.

Oww pretty good job reaching so high with Sharpedo, and your team also seems quite interesting, good stuff!

okay I can't resist doing a victory post because ladies and gents I am your first dark horse GRANDMASTER



edit: more points pocket

(stereotypical sports announcer voice) Ahem!

Looks like things have already started heating up in the DHP! Our hall of fame is filling up fast and it's only been two days... While we plan the ladder cutoffs for next month (wink wink), remember that you still have the rest of the month to continue this round before we roll into the next month of stats. There are lots of Dark Horses yet to be claimed, and plenty of time with which to claim them! Some Dark Horses, like Xatu and Wobbuffet, are being fought for between many battlers. Keep laddering and prove the worth of your Dark Horses in OU! We have many bronze players and even a few gold and silver, but with the platinum rank opened, we're looking forward to seeing who will aim for these even higher tiers of achievement.

Oh, and one more reminder to temper (or perhaps maintain =P) my man Lavos's competitive spirit: remember, the Grandmaster position can be unseated at ANY time in the month if you can beat the current Grandmaster's ladder record (as held by their Dark Horse alt). It's not over yet, OU! FLY FOR ZE MOOOOON

Grats Lavos, thats quite an accomplishment :)

Pokemon Showdown! Username: sirspiketrap100
Hall of Fame Standing:nothing
Dark Horse Pokemon Currently Working With: Darmanitan
Current Ladder Standing on Pokemon Showdown!: 1000
new alt

giving this a shot with another alt

Pokemon Showdown! Username: THEMIGHTYAMBIPOM(not really fresh, but I have only played UU with this one)
Hall of Fame Standing:lets see
Dark Horse Pokemon Currently Working With: Ambipom
Current Ladder Standing on Pokemon Showdown!: User: themightyambipom
Format ACRE GXE Glicko2 W L T
ou 1665 79 1852 ± 132 (provisional) 7 1 0

new alt because this is fun

Pokemon Showdown! Username: toshidarkhorse
Hall of Fame Standing: Made it before
Dark Horse Pokemon Currently Working With: Azelf
Current Ladder Standing on Pokemon Showdown!: 1000

Pokemon Showdown! Username: LordOfKobol
Hall of Fame Standing: none yet
Dark Horse Pokemon Currently Working With: Cobalion
Current Ladder Standing on Pokemon Showdown!: n/a because as soon as I logged on to start laddering, the server crashed. >.<

I've done it. This day is a good day. Slowbro, Porygon2, and Bronzong were my picks.


How did you choose your Dark Horse Pokemon for this project? What lead you to choose the Pokemon you did? Did you have regrets or were you happy with your selection?

I had already made Celestial Beings a while before. I'm currently hard at work at a new Trick Room team, using different pokemon, a few of which are also Dark Horses. I declared my Dark Horses based upon what was in the team I love so much.

How did you go about building a team for your Dark Horse Pokemon? Which kinds of teammates did you consider? What factors contributed to the team you created?

The basis of full Trick Room is difficult, but I think over all it went well. I've always had a fascination with Trick Room, and wanted it to be successful, so I set out to do so. After hours of work and calcs and everything, my hard work had paid off. The basics were 4 Trick Room setters (with the introduction of Reuniclus this was now possible) and 2 abusers. The setters were selected first, with Reuniclus due to his raw power and Porygon 2 due to his versatility. Then I knew I needed a steel type, so Bronzong was in, and Slowbro came last for a physical wall and his access to Yawn. There's much more indepth team building process at the bottom of the page. The abusers were different, as they needed to be bulky and not deadweight out of Trick Room, but be absolute monsters inside. I chose Dragonite for his mixed prowess, to break any walls giving me trouble, and I chose Conkeldurr for his sheer power and access to incredibly strong Mach Punch. All together the team has some weakness I'm attempting to address in my next team.


Do you think it is more difficult or less difficult to ladder with a Dark Horse Pokemon? Why? Does the element of surprise play a factor in your battles? Is it easier to fight with a "highly used"" team or with Pokemon that are less common?

I think it's easier for me, because Trick Room is all I do and there simply aren't enough "highly used" setters or abusers of Trick Room. It's essentially not viable to build a Trick Room team with nothing but Over Used pokemon, which is an aspect I enjoy. I like to be unique and good at what I specialize in, and I think Trick Room teams are just that for me--unique.

(For Hall of Fame members only) How did you reach the Hall of Fame? Was it easy or difficult? Did having a Dark Horse Pokemon on your team benefit you? What advice would you give to those laddering with Dark Horse Pokemon?

I reached the Hall of Fame with a pretty decent record-- almost 80% win rate. It wasn't too hard for me, but this team had been on the leader board before, Dark Horses and all. The Dark Horses are very integral parts of my team, and actually the most used pokemon the team, Dragonite, is often the largest liability. To those attempting the challenge, I'd say just keep on trying guys. It took me sooo long and so many tries before I made a somewhat successful Trick Room team, and then even longer to begin to perfect it. If you see someone on the ladder saying "lawl nice gimmick" or anything like that, just beat them and move on. Pokemon is a very versatile game, use it to your advantage and use what you enjoy using.

Here's a link to the full RMT, typed up a while ago. Trick Room is a real thing, guys.
http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3470556

Pokemon Showdown! Username: SOILED IT
Hall of Fame Standing: Platinum
Dark Horse Pokemon Currently Working With: Weavile
Current Ladder Standing: ou 2080 93 2197 ± 85 (provisional) 24 4 0

going to go for another round

Made it with 21-4 score:

Phewww. It's been a while since i laddered so much... Now onto the questions:

How did you choose your Dark Horse Pokemon for this project? I chose him after a discussion in Moltres's OU thread, where the subject was whether or not he is OU viable. I theorized that an offensive SubLO Roost set would be the best, but after doing some testing the Specs set was the one that sold me. Its Specs Hurricane was freakin powerful, 2hkoing stuff such as Rotom-W and Skarmory easily, while also being able to easily 2HKO Jirachi and SpD in rain, unlike Torn-T and making for a wonderful Sun, Lucario and Scizor check. It can also counter Breloom with Sleep Talk, which is an added bonus!


How did you go about building a team for your Dark Horse Pokemon? The first thing i obviously needed was Politoed. Because yeah how can you abuse a Hurricane abuser without having Toed? I also chose Starmie so that i can reliably spin, even against Jellicent, because keeping SR off the filed was vital to Moltres's success. Finally i needed teammates that could take on what he couldn't and pokes to lure the pokes he can demolish. So LO Tornadus-T was added, to create a beautiful double Hurricane offensive core, while also taking care of Tyranitar and Heatran, 2 problematic pokes for Moltres. He also had Taunt, because he was the only member in my team that could deal with the blobs and any annoying lead in HO teams. Finally U-turn Celebi was added because he lures many of the stuff that Moltres enjoys facing, such as Scizor, Skarmory, Forretress and Ferrothorn, and brings him in safely.


Do you think it is more difficult or less difficult to ladder with a Dark Horse Pokemon? Why? One thing i can surely tell. It is definitely more enjoyable to battle with really underused pokes (i mean stuff with 3% usage or less, real hidden gems), since they change your experience in the otherwise pretty boring OU meta. Specs Moltres also surprised quite a bit of people, as some of them didn't even knew he learned Hurricane, switching their Terrakions willy nilly only to be OHKOed in return. I don't know if another poke would have done better in Moltres's slot, but Moltres definitely held his own, and proved his worth in OU.

How did you reach the Hall of Fame? Most of my battles where against stupid Gene + Rotom-W cores, where if i could set-up SR fast and wear them down i won. However Moltres was quite useful against balanced and semi-stall teams that i encountered. All in all reaching the Hall of Fame requires 2 things imo. Having a well-built team (not an awesome, just well) that covers the most important stuff in the meta, and having patience. Hax is your enemy as is tilting. If you lose a battle to hax, and you are enraged, stop playing. This is what happened to me in the first account that i made (MoltresMan), so i created a new one.

Here is the set i used:

Moltres @ Choice Specs
Trait: Pressure
EVs: 252 SAtk / 4 SDef / 252 Spd
Modest Nature
- Hurricane
- Fire Blast
- U-turn
- Sleep Talk

With a Specs and a Modest nature the only things that avoid a 2HKO from Moltres in OU between his STAB moves are SpD Heatran, Tyranitar, SpD Rotom-W, Chansey, Blissey (yeah in rain). Everything except from Rotom-W is handled by LO Tornadus-T, and Rotom-W is handled by Celebi pretty well. I bring him in when it is absolutely safe to do so, mostly with U-turn from Celebi on the Steels it attracts. This is because i need him to be in tip top shape, as he is my check to main threats such as Sun teams in general (he gives nightmares to any Sun team without Heatran), SD Lucario, Volcarona and Scizor. I was also using Wish Jirachi in the team, which has very good synergy with Jirachi, so his longevity with Rapid Spin + Wish was quite good, and he usually lasted through the whole game. However i had one main complaint about him... He was pretty slow, and failed to outspeed a ton of offensive pokes, and most of them could OHKO him, 'cause having weakness to 3 of the most common attacking types doesn't really help. This made him quite useless against many offensive teams, except from some pokes he hard walls or checks, even if he is outsped, such as Volcarona for example. So for example if Moltres had 100 or 105 Base Speed, then it could easily be OU, imho...

And here is the whole team:

I see that a platinum tier was made for those at top 10, but I don't think that the placements are necessarily very representative of actual placement since players in the top 100 will lose their spot from provisional decay, allowing someone whose rating is essentially lower than theirs to temporarily be in inflated positions. Nonetheless, I'm updating my post now to reflect my top 10 position.