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: