Counter that Pokemon - Mk IV [FINAL MATCH - Team 1 won!]

Thundurus-Therian (M) @ Life Orb
Trait: Volt Absorb
EVs: 252 SAtk / 252 Spd / 4 Def
Timid Nature
- Thunderbolt / Thunder
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Agility
- Nasty Plot

I think we should start with Double Dance Thundurus-T. DD Thundurus-T is a really underrated threat in this metagame, having the ability to either plough through defensive teams at +2 special attack or clean up weakened offensive teams at +2 speed. The point is, this set gives us a way to deal with whatever style the opposing team chooses. If they go more defensive, we'll be ready. If they go hyper offensive, we'll be ready for that too! Possible threats to the team that can be caused by this set would include Gastrodon, Mamoswine, and Weavile, though each of these can be dealt with pretty easily (Jolly Breloom beats all of them). The only concern I have with starting with Thundurus-T is that it is Stealth Rock weak, and I'm not sure we want to start right off the bat with tat kind of disadvantage. Either way, this Thundurus-T set is a monster, and building a team around him could be extremely fun.

Kingdra @ Life Orb
Trait: Swift Swim
EVs: 32 HP / 244 SAtk / 232 Spd
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Rain Dance
- Hydro Pump
- Ice Beam
- Dragon Pulse

Although normally used as a means of checking rain teams, Kingdra is an excellent sweeper in its own right. With Rain Dance both doubling its Speed and giving an extra x1.5 boost to its Hydro Pump, it is exceedingly difficult to both counter and revenge kill this set. The small amount of things that can check this set can be easily exploited by other members of Team 1.

Just questioning what does exactly ice beam hits? hydro pump under rain does more than a super effective ice beam, and if you are going to hit something x4 weak to ice it will die to hydro pump anyway (landorus) or dragon pulse (dragonite). So why using it? i would just put surf just to be sure that you wont lose for a miss, or draco meteor.

Keldeo @ Lum Berry
Trait: Justified
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Calm Mind
- Hydro Pump
- Hidden Power [Ghost]
- Secret Sword

Calm Mind Keldeo is one of the best sweeper right now, the goal is to setup a Calm Mind to destroy everything later and Keldeo can do this thanks to its base 108 Speed and thanks to its good coverage moves. Hydro Pump hits very hard but Surf is a nice good option too, especially if you hate missing. Sacret Sword is an another STAB move which allows Keldeo to bypass standard speciall walls like Chansey and Blissey. Then, Hidden Power Ghost allows Keldeo to hit for a good damage Jellicent which otherwise completely walls the pony; however, Hidden Power Ice is a viable choice too if you fear Dragon-types such as Dragonite and if you have another way to deal with Jellicent -- Choice Band Tyranitar for example. Finally, I decided to use Lum Berry on my Keldeo because I think it's really useful item to avoid some annoying status like burn, badly poison and paralysis and because I really hate running Life Orb on my sweepers due to the recoil, which is very annoying too. Leftovers was a viable choice too guess but I found Lum Berry more useful than it in my battles.

Okay, time to comment on some sets. I am positively impressed by the average quality; it seems that everyone grasped quite well how to select a good first pick for this project. Many of the proposed sets are quite self sufficient (which is a great asset since Team 2 can prevent us from giving any kind of support, with intelligent picking) and can threaten a wide range of possible opposing picks thanks to either sheer power, wide coverage, priority, status, whatever. Since many of the sets are great and there's not much to say on those, I'd like to spend a couple more time on the entries I don't like that much.

SubCM Latias is very easy to take advantage of: Steel types get free switches happily, threatening to take down its Substitute and exposing it to subsequent attacks. Scizor can come in and U-Turn out without worries, letting you without a Substitute and with a full HP potential revenge killer to face. ScarfRachi / Metagross can be troublesome too, the first with U-Turn, Iron Head, or Ice Punch, and the second can even trap with Pursuit (not that I actually like Metagross in a CtP, but...). Furthermore, any remotely bulky phazer completely shuts down Latias; examples are SpD Hippowdon, SpD Ninetales, any Skarmory, Perish Song Celebi, the list continues for a while. It can be even checked offensively with things like Icicle Spear Mamoswine, that is almost never 2HKO'd and can go through Substitutes easily. Overall it seems the worst possible option here.

Rotom-W is a weird pick to do at this stage of the project. While it's awesome by itself, it's just asking the opponent to pick a powerful Grass type like offensive Celebi, and then abuse Rotom by either KOing or U-Turning away. I'd say such a pick should be saved for later, when we can better gauge its utility in relation to the opponent's picks.

Thundurus-T is in the same boat of Latias, maybe to a lesser extent but still similar. Any Ground / Water pokemon will shut down the set easily, and deal heavy damage with Ice Beam. Mamoswine is also an awesome pokemon that makes for an easy counterpick, that takes little damage from an unboosted HP Ice and can OHKO after SR. Dropping a boosting move for Focus Blast could lessen the problem, though.

The other sets are all fine (sorta), in my opinion. I'd like to encourage discussion a bit more: reviewing others' sets is often as important as submitting your own, since it helps everyone grasping the pros and the cons of the various alternatives.

@EspeonX :
The first Pokemon I had in mind was Lead Focus Sash Breloom carrying Focus Punch. I mean Breloom is my #1 Pokemon why wouldn't I pick that LOL.
The only reason I didn't choose that is because I was afraid that, that variant of Breloom would be too Offensively oriented. So I went for Keldeo with Expert Belt who can easily fit into a variety of teams

I was going to post the same set than Darkblazer, team 1 really need a offensive pick with great coverage and a move like u-turn/volt switch so team 2 will have a really hard time to counter this. Also I think that set-up sweeper are bad choices for first pick, we may reserved that kind of sweeper for the 5-6 places.

@Neliel : I suggest you to put HP fire instead of Calm mind, however scizor totally counter your set.

Neliel said:

Just questioning what does exactly ice beam hits? hydro pump under rain does more than a super effective ice beam, and if you are going to hit something x4 weak to ice it will die to hydro pump anyway (landorus) or dragon pulse (dragonite). So why using it? i would just put surf just to be sure that you wont lose for a miss, or draco meteor.

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ice Beam 2hkos sdef amoonguss and celebi, who are otherwise good checks to this set. tbh i've always disliked using draco meteor on non-specs kingdra since you're aiming to sweep, and the satk drop can mean a real momentum loser.

Ah, it's great to see this back again. I tried posting Landorus last night, typed the entire post in full, but I was a few minutes too late and I got ninja'd, lol. I definitely think that's the best first pick, so I probably won't post my own set for this round (unless I have an epiphany, lol.) I'll post some discussion later on, but I just wanted to say I really hope this project turns out well this time, and thanks to Melee Mewtwo and Ganj4lf for hosting :)

well its not like ice beam solves this problem, unless there are sr up and you do ice beam while it switches on you celebi will just ppstall kindgra, and even if you 2ko it you wont have the rain so its very easy to the opponent to revenge kill kindgra. Signal beam maybe? as for amoonguss, its very difficult to beat due to regenerator, even with ice beam doing 50/60..

Honestly, when I saw the Special Rock Polish Landorus-Incarnate post I was like "Damn it!"
It's too good especially if it carries U-Turn as well. However, I'd like people to remember my Expert Belted Keldeo set. It works phenominally well with Landorus as Keldeo can remove its counters. They also share some great defensive synergy!

Mew @ Leftovers
Trait: Synchronize
EVs: 108 HP / 252 SAtk / 148 Spd
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Nasty Plot
- Psychic
- Fire Blast
- Baton Pass

This Mew is a fantastic team-player. It is very self-sufficient, able to roll over weakened teams with its strong STAB Psychic, and it covers steels well with Fire Blast. Fire Blast is chosen over Aura Sphere so that Scizor, Ferrothorn, Jirachi, and all of the other strong steel options can't set up in front of Mew. In fact, without Aura Sphere, you're really only losing the ability to beat Tyranitar and Heatran. The key here is to use Mew as a strong offensive presence while still maintaining significant momentum should you need to switch out through Baton Pass.

The EVs are selected carefully--the speed and nature allow Mew to out-speed any neutral-natured base 100, meaning that we force the enemy to choose quick Pokemon over strong Pokemon from the get-go. 252 EVs are put to SAtk so that Mew can cause as much damage as possible on its own, and then the rest of the EVs go into HP for overall bulk. The given EVs also give Mew a perfect Leftovers number, on top of that.

So, why Mew? Well, it's pretty simple. It's not weak against Stealth Rock, which is huge here. It can fair decently against any leads to its fair speed, fair bulk, ability to hit hard with pretty good coverage, and immediately threatens Baton Pass. It can escape any Pursuit, meaning that it isn't afraid of Tyranitar without Aura Sphere. It bounces back status thanks to Synchronize, and is quick enough to avoid most Taunts. Also, it opens Team 1 up to endless possibilities of teammates. Tons of Pokemon resist Bug, Dark, and Ghost, meaning that there are plenty of compatible teammates to throw Nasty Plot, too. Most phazers--except for the Lati-twins--can't really afford to fight against Mew. Also, with Fire Blast and Psychic, you can threaten the majority of the metagame at +2. You certainly need not worry about Spikes on the other team, as Roserade, Ferrothorn, and Skarmory are all swiftly dealt with.

In general, Mew can stand toe-to-toe with most of the metagame and either land KOs or pass to other teammates, allowing Team 1 to immediately scout the play of Team 2.

I've used this set to great success. The possibilities of Pokemon to pass Nasty Plot to that otherwise normally don't think about such boosts is endless--Keldeo, Landorus, Jolteon, Raikou, Suicune, Starmie, Latios, Gengar, Alakazam...

Mew stands well against offense with its bulk, defense with its boosting pressure and ability to maintain momentum, hazards with its coverage, taunt with its speed, and status with its ability. It is not to be underestimated.

Landy, Keldeo, and Breloom were all taken. Oh well.

Starmie @ Life Orb
Trait: Natural Cure
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Hydro Pump
- Ice Beam
- Thunderbolt / Thunder
- Recover

Why Starmie?
Unbeknownst to many players, Starmie is easily one of the most threatening Pokemon in the metagame right now. It's one of the offensive Pokemon that can easily take abuse rain, and at the same time counter Pokemon commonly found on rain teams. It has the ability to hit extremely hard with STAB Hydro Pump coming off it's respectable SpA, and has excellent coverage with BoltBeam. BoltBeam allows it to hit many common threats for SE damage, such as Keldeo, Breloom, Landorus, Thundurus-T, and Politoed. Along with Hydro Pump coverage, Terrakion, Hippodown, Tyranitar, and Heatran also are easy to hit. Natural Cure also allows for Starmie to absorb status then attempt to 2-3HKO the wall with it's coverage and respectable attacking power.

Notes:
I decided to go with a Life Orb + Recover set instead of an Offensive Spinner set because I didn't want to include it should it not be necessary. I figured because Starmie is also pursuit weak, it wasn't too overly strong to start off with. And my sprite is the coolest.

Kyurem-Black @ Choice Band
Trait: Teravolt
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Naughty Nature
- Fusion Bolt
- Outrage
- Ice Beam
- Dragon Claw

Banded kyurem-b. While many are quick to jump on the "Kyurem has no coverage" bandwagon, they fail to realize just what that base 170 Attack means.



These are the ou pokemon that can stomach an attack from Kyu-b (according to honkocalc). 4. One of them being the meh magnezone and another being an unheard of jirachi spread. That leaves essentially two safe-ish pokemon. However, these two pokemon, although somewhat common, are lacking in the recovery department, and are easily worn down due to the many roles they often take on. Building a team around kyurem, especially such an offensively oriented set, means the following:

1. The other team is already in a very hard pressed situation.
Yes, they can use ferro/forry/skarm. Yes, they can outspeed. But the fact of the matter is, when kyurem switches in (whether it be after a kill, on one of its many resists (ie. water), or even on the first turn), something is either dying, or it is taking ~80%, leaving it very vulnerable for team 1 to take advantage of. Thus, immediately having kyurem-b on the team puts team 2 in a very high-pressure checkmate sort of situation.

2. Team 1 will have an immediate answer to many popular pokes/playstyles.
While kyurem b is "ogod ice type," it has a slew of incredible resistances: water, electric, and, what do you know, IT ISN'T WEAK TO ICE! Not only does this mean it doesn't fear ice shard, but the classic water/ice/electric or even just plain boltbeam coverage combo (ie. double dance thundy) is practically useless and a free switch in (which, as mentioned, means havok). Here are top 20 pokemon that kyurem absolutely loves:

Luckily, every single top 15 threat is handled by...

3. Can be paired with very useful partners extremely easily:
Landorus-t, for example, not only takes care of priority weakness from the likes of sciz and loom, but can take pretty much any fighting or dragon attack that comes kyu's way (physical) while setting up rocks to aide cube in the process
Other teammates can function similarly. Thus not only does kyu place enormous pressure on opposing team building, it also allows for more diversity and synergy in team 1. Plush, it allows any playstyle (stall sucks) to be chosen really. kyurem functions in any weather (and greatly appreciates the high pressure "has to sack something" situations in the weather war) and is great on weatherless.


So yeah.

tl;dr: Kyu-b is great


Also, random log:

nuff said

Tabuu said:

@EspeonX :
The first Pokemon I had in mind was Lead Focus Sash Breloom carrying Focus Punch. I mean Breloom is my #1 Pokemon why wouldn't I pick that LOL.
The only reason I didn't choose that is because I was afraid that, that variant of Breloom would be too Offensively oriented. So I went for Keldeo with Expert Belt who can easily fit into a variety of teams

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I believe you posted the Loom/Keldeo core in the OU Cores thread? Focus Sash Breloom was something I considered posting, but LO Breloom has oomph. Still, Spore + Focus Punch would be tricky to switch into.

Neliel said:

Just questioning what does exactly ice beam hits? hydro pump under rain does more than a super effective ice beam, and if you are going to hit something x4 weak to ice it will die to hydro pump anyway (landorus) or dragon pulse (dragonite). So why using it? i would just put surf just to be sure that you wont lose for a miss, or draco meteor.

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Hydro Pump is quite a risky move, due to the 80% accuracy. Ice Beam is just reliable against things you don't want to risk missing against (Thundurus-T, Landorus, etc.). Running Surf wouldn't risk a miss, but it lacks the insane power of Hydro Pump. Draco Meteor also forces a switchout as soon as it's used, and allows the opponent to setup on you. Kingdra is going to want to use all 5 turns of Rain Dance. Draco Meteor's -2 Special attack drop is not great for something like Kingdra.

I am loving the look of that Mew set. I'd love to see Mew BP +2 to something like Starmie, or Gengar.

I think the best suggestion so far is Landorus-I, because it will force the Team 2 to pick form a very limited pool of counters. I liked the the version with U-turn better though, as it great harder to counter than RP variants, steals momentum and is more usefull outside of a late game sweep. When we take RP Landorus as our first pick, Team 2 will probably pick Mamoswine, since it can easily stick around for the duration of game, thus preventing Landorus from setting up, which team 1 would need to find a solution for, otherwise we would have a pretty useless Landorus. This would put Team 1 at a disadvantage as it the would be forced to react to team 2. The U-turn variant doesn't have this problem, becasue it will be useful regardles of team 2's pick, dishing out damage with his absurdly powerful moves everytime it comes in, while gaining momentum,too. Team 1 would still need to react to Team 2's pick obviously, but it wouldn't be that pressured in order to make Landorus work.

tl;dr: U-turn > Rock Polish (DarkBlazeR's set > ginganinja's set)

So glad to see this project back up again with a fix to the bandwagoning issue in the last CtP. Hello to all the guys who participated in the last version. I'll probably submit a set later

Zoroark (F) @ Life Orb
216 Atk, 40 Spa, 252 Spe
Naive nature
-U-Turn
-Night Daze
-Flamethrower
-Sucker Punch

Ahh, Zoroark, one of the metagame's diamonds in the rough. Able to take down so much due to its powerful priority, helping take down set up sweepers. Psychics and Ghosts are not an issue with Zoroark in play. Not to metion momentum gains with U-Turn. However, the coup d'tat is Illusion. With Illusion, we can bluff any of our future choice users, via Expert Belt, or take out another pokemon's checks, such as Landorus. Not to mention, if we choose Landorus I later, Zoroark can take out most of his checks( bulky Psychics, Mamo). Had a hard time between Flamethrower and Focus Blast, but I ended up fearing Breloom more than Terrakion.

Maybe its better if you use the dark plate, expert belt doesnt really help with anything here; i would also consider dark pulse over night daze, because it doesnt miss and it can flinch... it doesnt seem a very difficult pokemon to counter because a lot of things can survive a dark pulse and ko it back, but its trait is intriguing.

Neliel said:

Maybe its better if you use the dark plate, expert belt doesnt really help with anything here; i would also consider dark pulse over night daze, because it doesnt miss and it can flinch... it doesnt seem a very difficult pokemon to counter because a lot of things can survive a dark pulse and ko it back, but its trait is intriguing.

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Its main goal is to be offensive support and hammer things hard with super effective attacks. As for Night Daze> Dark Pulse, it has higher power and its miss chance is rather low, but the kicker is a timely accuracy hindrance, which can force switches and win games.

Hate to just reply and defend my pokemon from pretty good suggestions, I think this thing works wonders, and the meta needs more LandOark (Landorus I and Zoroark).

When we take RP Landorus as our first pick, Team 2 will probably pick Mamoswine, since it can easily stick around for the duration of game, thus preventing Landorus from setting up, which team 1 would need to find a solution for, otherwise we would have a pretty useless Landorus.

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Tbh id just follow up with a Skarmory pick, set up spikes, and go to town. Mamo cannot switch into Landorus-I, and repeated switchins + LO + Spikes would eventually finish it.

ginganinja said:

Tbh id just follow up with a Skarmory pick, set up spikes, and go to town. Mamo cannot switch into Landorus-I, and repeated switchins + LO + Spikes would eventually finish it.

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Yeah, nothing's wrong with that, I just have the feeling that picking such a distinctiv late game sweeper might force us into a pattern, where we will be left with smaller choice when it comes to future picks. I just find it odd to already pick our supposed game finisher without knowing anything about Team 2. Although U-turn over Rock Polish is only small difference, it will leave us with much more freedom, while having an awesomely strong momentum stealer for the midgame. In addtion to the pressure it will already put on Team 2, as U-turn Sheer Force Landorus has no real counter, it also won't give them any information about what our goal will be for the game (such as a RP Labdorus sweep), thus giving them little opportunity to counter this goal right from the start.

Okay, voting will start in a couple of hours so make sure to submit your set if you don't have already, or to leave your feedback if any.

MX42 said:

Zoroark (F) @ Expert Belt

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Just a quick question, wouldn't be better to just go all out offensive with Life Orb and both Focus Blast and Flamethrower? Life Orb boosts your Dark moves regardless of their effectiveness, which can be very helpful against things like weakened Scarfers (or faster pokemon) not weak to Dark (Jirachi, Landoruses, Thundurus, Dragons, many others I guess). Expert Belt loses its bluffing potential since the set is known, and its boost looks quite situational, especially without Fire coverage. Almost any Jirachi can take advantage of the set right now, while a Life Orb-boosted Flamethrower 2HKOs almost all of them (bar SpD Jirachi, which takes minimum 80%, so any prior damage would likely result in a KO).

Not that keen on Mew. All Team #2 needs to do is pack a phazer (ie Heatran) and its worse than useless. Likewise, I dislike Starmie, since its pretty easy to chuck in a Ferrothorn, and laugh. its not even running Rapid Spin either, so Team #2 could be free to spam Hazards with Ferrothorn, giving us a large problem that we would NEED to deal with.

Nominating Offensive Vapoeron


Vaporeon @ Life Orb
Trait: Hydration
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 SAtk / 4 Def
Modest Nature
- Hydro Pump
- Ice Beam
- Rest
- Hidden Power [Electric]

While this set seems weird and everything else. It is great at checking some pokemon. First Vaporeon has a great bulk and a nice 110 SAtk so why wouldn't we use him as an offensive sweeper. When people see a Vaporeon is a team, they think it's the defensive set so this set has also a surprise value. It's also effective in his role, because it counters Gyarados easely and a lot of pokemon too. Leftovers is viable too for his item but Life Orb gives him some power and with rest and hydration (according rain is up), it's not difficult to rest and come back to full life.