The Outer Planets

Hi Smogon! This is my first post, but some of you might have seen me lurking around Showdown! and posting random weird things in the chat.

I'm a fairly new battler who's been lurking around the site since the mid-BW metagame, trying to build an at-least half-decent team, and I finally think I've made something worthy of an RMT. So, without further ado:



The team is centered around SubCM Latias, who is a great Pokemon in this meta thanks to her ability to check multiple threats on rain and sun teams. She is also a deadly sweeper if she gets the opportunity to set up.

Teambuilding Process:



Roles: special tank/wall, anti-rain, lead

Note: testing Thunder Wave over Will-O-Wisp

Just like the king of the Roman gods, and to an extent like the planet that bears his name, Rotom-Wash loves to drop thunderbolts on everything. Okay, not really - Volt Switch provides better momentum, but you get the idea. Rotom-W is an excellent check to rain teams right now, and is my designated switch-in for Tornadus-T and Mamoswine. Having a low-accuracy STAB sucks sometimes, but being able to catch things like Thundurus-T off guard with a rain-boosted smack to the face is great. Will-O-Wisp helps the team against physical attackers, as the only dedicated physical wall/tank is Landorus-T. Pain Split isn't the most reliable recovery, but it's the best Rotom's got aside from ChestoRest, and it does deal damage in a way. 248 HP avoids an HP divisible by 8 to allow Rotom to switch into rocks more often, and the extra 4 EVs go into Special Defense to preserve bulk. 30 Speed IVs make sure that Rotom "outslows" other defensive Rotom so Volt Switch can go last.

Synergy:
Grass: Scizor, Heatran, Latias



Roles: physical wallbreaker, revenge-killer, scouter, lategame sweeper

Scizor's nickname fits the least out of everyone on this team (it was Breloom's old nickname: Saturn is a god of agriculture and Breloom is a Grass-type), but I guess she has power over time with her priority Bullet Punch. Scizor is the sole priority user on the team, but boy, does that priority hurt. Ever since Genesect usurped Scizor's place as OU's #1 iron-clad insect, I have the feeling that many players have forgotten how powerful CB Scizor is. Bullet Punch bypasses Scizor's low speed and puts the hurt on things like Terrakion, Mamoswine, and weakened dragons. U-turn is a great scouting move and easily grabs momentum, forming a Volt-Turn core with Rotom-W and Landorus-T. It also gives me a chance to prevent Deoxys-D leads without HP Fire from setting up anything besides rocks, as Scizor's U-turn puts the extraterrestrial mutant into KO range of Keldeo's water moves. Superpower is necessary to prevent being walled by steels, and it can be a nasty surprise to things like Heatran and Magnezone that try to take down Scizor. Pursuit traps opposing Lati@s and other psychic types not named Jirachi, Metagross, or Bronzong, which opens up sweeping opportunities for Latias and Keldeo. Although I do miss Breloom and his sleep-inducing Spore, I think Scizor is currently the best choice for this team.

Synergy:
Fire: Heatran, Rotom-W, Latias, Keldeo



Roles: physical tank, defensive pivot, hazard setter, anti-sand, lead

inb4 uranus jokes

Like his namesake, Landorus-T prowls the skies of OU, cutting the attack of anything that gets in his way with his steely glare (okay, so Ouranos probably didn't do that last bit, but yeah). He provides the team with much-needed physical defense, and can check threats such as Terrakion, Scizor, Breloom, and sometimes dragons. Landorus-T is also my Stealth Rock setter, and although he may not be the most reliable one, he does manage to accomplish the task often enough. Even without full investment, he reaches 376 Attack, which allows him to hit back hard. Earthquake and Stone Edge have excellent coverage, and U-turn adds to the Volt-Turning shenanigans.

Synergy:
Water: Rotom-W, Latias, Keldeo
Ice: Rotom-W, Heatran, Scizor, Keldeo


Roles: special revenge killer, wallbreaker, lategame sweeper, rain abuser

Note: testing Specs Keldeo with HP Electric and Icy Wind

As fast as Neptune's violent winds, Keldeo serves as the team's primary revenge killer. His blazing 108 Speed allows him to outspeed a variety of threats, including Dragonite, Salamence, and Garchomp at +1, unboosted Lati@s, and unboosted rain genies Tornadus-T and Thundurus-T. Keldeo's Hydro Pump is an easily spammable STAB, but if I ever need accuracy over power, Surf is the way to go. Secret Sword busts through special walls and steels who would hinder Latias, and Hidden Power Ice is Keldeo's anti-dragon weapon. The little pony can also abuse the Drizzle of opposing rain teams, and with the equivalent of +1 Special Attack and Speed boosts, Keldeo's rain-boosted Hydro Pump becomes difficult to wall.

Synergy:
Electric: Landorus-T, Latias, Rotom-W (sort of)
Grass: Scizor, Heatran, Latias
Psychic: Scizor, Heatran, Latias
Flying: Rotom-W, Heatran


Roles: special tank, lategame sweeper, anti-sun, sun abuser

From his domain underneath the earth, Heatran rises to bravely challenge weatherless teams' greatest nemesis: sun. Armed with his trusty balloon, Heatran can wall most sun sweepers, avoid being trapped by Dugtrio, and even stop dragons without fighting/water moves. Since Landorus-T is the team's rock setter, I decided that Flame Charge could give Heatran an additional role as a lategame sweeper, as very few unboosted Pokemon can outspeed Heatran at +1 Speed. The Timid nature allows Heatran to hit max speed so he doesn't end up trying to go for the kill and instead getting outsped by something. Fire Blast gives Heatran as much power as possible for as few negative side effects as possible. Earth Power slams opposing balloon-less Heatran and is a secondary anti-steel attack. Hidden Power Ice allows Heatran to take on dragons if Keldeo or Scizor can't do the job, and forms an Ice+Ground combo with Earth Power. Flame Charge lets Heatran boost its speed, which makes it harder for Dugtrio to trap and other Pokemon to revenge kill. The only downside to Heatran is that it's almost dead weight against rain, but I don't know how I'd handle sun without him.

Synergy:
Ground: Rotom-W, Landorus-T, Latias
Water: Rotom-W, Latias, Keldeo
Fighting: Landorus-T, Latias


Roles: special sweeper, defensive pivot, anti-rain, anti-sun

And finally we come to the queen of chaos herself, Latias! Yes, technically Pluto and Eris aren't planets, but there are only 4 outer planets and 6 Pokemon on a team, so I can't really do anything about that.

Latias not only has a cool design, she can wreak havoc with the right support, and the right support is what I've tried to give her in this team. Her sole attacking move, Dragon Pulse, is resisted by only steels. Accordingly, each of her teammates has at least one move that can hit steels at least neutrally. Opposing dragons are another threat to Latias's sweep. Scizor, Keldeo, and Heatran can remove these dragons from the equation. Latias's main weakness is strong physical attacks, which are neutralized by Rotom-W's Will-O-Wisp and Landorus-T's Intimidate. Substitute is by far one of the best utility moves for CM Latias, as it gives her a shield against status and Pursuit. It's surprising how often players try to status Latias, only to be met by the emotionless face of the Substitute doll. Calm Mind and Roost give Latias amazing staying power, allowing her to set up on many prominent special attackers such as Starmie (it's funny how often opponents try to take down Latias with Ice Beam but instead let her set up) and choice-locked Keldeo. If Latias manages to get to +2/+2 and the opponent has run out of checks, it's gg.

Synergy:
Ice: Heatran, Rotom-W, Keldeo, Scizor
Dragon: Heatran, Scizor
Dark: Keldeo, Heatran, Scizor
Bug: Heatran, Landorus-T, Scizor, Keldeo
Ghost: Scizor, Heatran

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Thanks for taking the time to read this! If you can, please give comments, feedback, suggestions, etc.

Importable:

Images from Pokestadium.com

Hello,

Very cool team you have here! I like a lot the use of Latias and I like in general the weatherless team. Well, let's start with the rate. At first, I'd use this EV spread on your Scizor: EVs: 200 HP / 252 Atk / 56 Spd, the EVs in Spd allow to go over Tyranitar (that could hit you with Fire Blast / Flamethrower) and the others Scizor that you can hit with Superpower. Finally, I'd use this EV spread on your Rotom-W: EVs: 248 HP / 56 SAtk / 200 SDef / 4 Spd, 248 EVs in HP allow to take less damage from Stealth Rock, 4 EVs in Spd allow to go over the Rotom-W that haven't EVs in Spd (so you can Volt Switch / Will-O-Wisp first), with 56 SAtk your Rotom-W has more fire power and 200 EVs in SDef are obviously here to resist to Hydro Pumps, Hurricanes and the others special attacks. You don't lose much defensive power with this EV spread and it give you more fire power so I suggest you to try it. That's all, Hope I helped, good luck.

Hi there, nuce team.
u ve some problems with special offense dragons, like hydreigon or lat@s... So i d suggest u jirachi>heatran, cause u ve already latias that is useful versus sun and a dugtrio anyway can beats it. I d use this set 252 hp/ 252 spD/ 4 Def with 0ivs spd, iron head, u-turn, wish, protect. so u can use u-turn to do a safe wish to his teammates without the threat of the predicts and have a great core with landorus. You also should replace quitk att> pursuit versus fire/water pokemons. If u dont want lose your offensive i d suggest u to change Scizor s set in orb offensive, so is a good revengekiller and a cleaner too. The set could be this: 200/252Atk/56 spd Sword dance/quick attack/bullet punch/superpower. Goods power of priority moves and the chance to sweep more things, as i told u quick atk is to hit things like tentacruel or kill rotom-w sometimes.see ya, hope i helped

Hi, great team you have there, so i cant suggest much!

I would try a chesto rest variant on Rotom-w actually so that you can switch-in into scald users or other bulky rotom-w without having to care about status. And yes i think that you should use Thunder wave, lets say that since rotom-w is designed to take special hits the most of the time you would prefer to paralize them rather than burning them (keldeo, tornadus, gengar, alakazam, volcarona, venusaur are all thing that does not care at all about the burn but are crippled by Tw)

Now i would like to change your Heatran a bit, as i already said a lot of times Heatran in weatherless does not really works for me because rain teams are everywhere, so lets say that trying to sweep with it thanks to flame charge is not a good idea because everytime you will face a Politoed i can assure your Heatran is not going to sweep, and you have nothing to change the weather so this thing wont change. Now i also see a bad weakness to Bulky Volcarona with roost since it can somewhat take your fire blast after some quiver and then sweep you entirely, Keldeo cant really do much after a quiver dance and if there is sun up is even worst. So a quick change would be to put Roar on Heatran instead of flame charge, in this way you can phaze things like Dragons locked into outrage as well as Volcarona, in my opinion you dont lose that much offensive presence since as i already said heatran is not going to sweep against any rain team.

I would also think about Psyshock instead of Substitute on Latias just to beat Specs keldeo or calm mind Keldeo, since i think that in the long run they can beat you because dragon pulse does nothing and its quite bad, but i understand if you dont want to take this advice because sub is good to avoid being pursuitted, revenge killed and statused, but if you feel like keldeo is a problem put Psyshock on it.

Hi

Your team will have issues against well played entry hazard setting teams. It's fairly easy for a lot of the common SRers and Spikers to set up on your team, sometimes they can get it as early as turn 1 without risking a lot anyway. You have no way to stop them from setting up and no way to get rid of hazards. While this may not be a problem for most teams, yours uses a voltturn core, and Pokemon who are rather easy to force out, like Heatran, meaning that you're going to be switching very often. With Stealth Rock up, that adds a lot of damage to the hits that you're already going to take, and with Spikes, Scizor, Heatran and Keldeo will have a hard time continuing the fight. A Rapid Spinner would be a great help to your team as that way, you can get rid of entry hazards, which means that your voltturn core is going to be much more effective. You could use user Starmie over Landorus-T for that. Starmie checks Terrakion and other Fighting types while also giving you a reliable Rapid Spinner. You need to put Stealth Rock somewhere then, I suggest you drop Flame Charge on Heatran for it.

That might look like a dumb change but I would recommend not using 4 Speed EVs on Rotom-W. You don't want to outspeed opposing Rotom-W. The reason is quite simple; when both Rotom use Volt Switch, you want to have the last Volt Switch so you get to pick what goes against the opponent's switch-in, and you also get your Pokemon in safe in case the opposing Rotom uses Will-O-Wisp or Hydro Pump. You can even use 30 Speed IVs to make sure you go last.

Here's the set you should use:

Good luck!

Hi,
nice team you got there. This team appears quite solid, however Jirachi has a great point, hazards look quite painful for you. You have absolutely zero ways to prevent Spikers to set up on, say, Lando, or Scizor, and you have no way to remove hazards, either. The most obvious (and probably the best) solution here is to introduce a Spinner somewhere, since a Magic Bounce user is tricky to stick into a team with already two Ice weaknesses (and yeah, I don't really like Espeon outside of niche roles as BPasser or something like that), and Taunting hazards is not always possible. Starmie looks a possible solution, as already suggested, however if you'd like something more bulky and resembling Lando's role somewhat, you could try Defensive Donphan. While lack of Fighting resistance may be concerning, Donphan's sheer bulk easily allows it to take Close Combat to any Terrakion set not carrying a Choice Band and avoid being 2HKO'd (CB is not assured to be able to 2HKO even after SR, but it's not a great idea to try to wall it with Donphan when you have Latias to your disposal). Donphan can both continue to set-up SR, without forcing you to alter your Heatran set, and Spin away hazards. Donphan's 120 base Attack make sure it's not complete set-up bait; Earthquake hits hard things like Tentacruel or Starmie that may try to switch in and Rapid Spin your hazards. The last move is up to you, Knock Off or Toxic can cripple things, or Roar can provide a failproof way to end sweeps, provided Sturdy is active and you're not facing Breloom / Cloyster. The only problem for Donphan could be its (relative) inability to handle Toxic Spikes, since it will be crippled upon switching in, but since your team doesn't really care except from Keldeo, that's not a great con.


That said, the only thing I'd suggest you to think about is that Flame Charge Heatran. Don't get me wrong, that's very cool, but is it working or not? I tried it a couple of times and always was not satisfied with the results, and in this meta infested with Keldeos, Toeds, and whatever else, I don't predict a very different outcome. I'm not suggesting to remove Heatran, you pretty much need it to check Sun teams, however a slight change in its moveset would be heavily beneficial, IMHO. I'd consider both a status move (WoW or Toxic) and Roar for the last slot: the former to cripple all those pesky things that love to switch into Heatran (WoW is better for Terrakion and Tentacruel, while Toxic cripples many other things that are either immune or don't care about burns, like Dragons, Volcarona, and Ninetales (although I don't really know why Ninetales would want to switch on Heatran...)), and the latter allows you to phaze the already mentioned bulky Volcarona, that could be quite a big annoyance otherwise.

Okay, that's all. The team is really solid other than these little things to fix, so good job, and good luck improving it! Hope I was helpful somewhat.

Thanks for all the rates!

A l e x a n d e r said:

At first, I'd use this EV spread on your Scizor: EVs: 200 HP / 252 Atk / 56 Spd, the EVs in Spd allow to go over Tyranitar (that could hit you with Fire Blast / Flamethrower) and the others Scizor that you can hit with Superpower.

Click to expand...

Outspeeding Tyranitar sounds great, but doesn't Bullet Punch already deal a lot of damage (although Scizor can't OHKO)? And opposing Scizor can be dealt with by Landorus-T, Heatran, and Rotom.

Finally, I'd use this EV spread on your Rotom-W: EVs: 248 HP / 56 SAtk / 200 SDef / 4 Spd ... with 56 SAtk your Rotom-W has more fire power and 200 EVs in SDef are obviously here to resist to Hydro Pumps, Hurricanes and the others special attacks.

Click to expand...

I'm just wondering; do the 56 SAtk EVs let Rotom get any important KOs? 28 is already enough to take out Gliscor.

This is a pretty nifty team with a lot of similarities to standard BW VoltTurn with Scizor, Landorus, and Rotom-W. I don't think that SubCM Latias is as effective as it used to be, though. While it's still a decent sweeper, the metagame is not very kind to it, considering Scizor, Tyranitar, Jirachi, and a multitude of other threats stand up to it and can even take advantage of it. Even though it wrecks sun teams, you've really got sun covered with your Flame Charge Heatran. I'd test out a different set that holds its weight, but is better equipped for this metagame: Life Orb Latias. Instead of aiming to sweep, it uses its Special Defense to tank hits and its workable Special Attack to break holes. This gives you a much better answer to Keldeo, and although Rotom-W can answer Keldeo, it doesn't last nearly long enough to stand up to repeated rain-boosted Hydro Pumps. Life Orb Latias is the perfect answer to Keldeo, and it has an added bonus of being difficult for sun to take down. I'd run a spread of 76 HP / 180 SpA / 252 Spe, a Timid nature, Life Orb, and a moveset of Draco Meteor / Psyshock / Hidden Power Fire / Recover. You could probably do fine with Surf over Hidden Power Fire, but you can have a bit of trouble against Thunder Wave Ferrothorn, so I'd advise against it.

As far as other changes go, you could try out Magma Storm over Fire Blast on Heatran. This can put you in an incredible position against some rather common sun Pokemon such as Ninetales and Cresselia, as if they decide to try and stay in for one turn, you can capitalize by suddenly boosting your Speed twice if the opposing team requires that you do so. You may not like the compromise for accuracy, though, so it's really a matter of preference. If you're going to test out Choice Specs Keldeo, I'd advise that you replace Will-O-Wisp with Thunder Wave on Rotom-W. While Will-O-Wisp is excellent for ruining Ferrothorn, Thunder Wave allows you to ignore the relative slowness of the team when it lacks a Choice Scarf user. It's also handy for crippling opposing sweepers if they assume they can scare you out, though this is a daring play. If you do lack a Choice Scarf user, though, you're going to have to make sure your opponent can't set up properly, and using Thunder Wave on Rotom-W guarantees this for you. Again, pretty cool team, it was a fun read. Good luck, I hope I helped.