First you Polish, then you Demolish!

this looks like a fun team to use. If sceptile seems to be coming out earlier than you'd like, you could switch it to the massively powerful specs set, dealing major damage to most switchins. Alternatively, you could go for rock slide over sub, allowing you to have a pokemon that eliminates both moltres and milotic. There's not such a big difference between plus 2 and 3 attack if you ask me

That's actually a pretty sweet team. The idea behind it is awesome. But in regards to the lead issue. Alakazam sounds sweet, because you can take out ambipom like you said, as well as Hariyama. I persoanlly use a sashed Nidoking as my lead. He's sturdy enough to withstand a lot of leads. His main goal is to throw out stealth rock and then die if he wishes (lol). However, a nidoking lead isnt that common, therefore most people don't expect it. I've had a few battles where I've gotten off stealth rock and landed a game-changing taunt. This lead to a sweep of 3 or 4 pokemon (using Earth Power or Ice Beam) before Nidoking ever even died.

I don't see how Milotic can be a problem if you have both Toxicroak and Sceptile.

Having faced this team there are two main issues I'd like to touch on, which I feel limit its potential somewhat. The first point is probably the more significant one - whenever you use Choice items, especially on sweepers that get forced out a lot (read: Toxicroak and Houndoom), you need a sturdy defensive core to fall back on and counterattack. Your team is far too offensively structured to be able to reliably support two Choice users, and I think that's your biggest tripping block against defensively minded teams running cores of Milotic / Venusaur / Arcanine or something similar. All they have to do is predict the appropriate attack, bring in the appropriately bulky Pokemon, and force you out. This causes you to take residual damage and lose all your offensive momentum, while they can just keep themselves healthy with Recover / Synthesis / Morning Sun and rinse and repeat.

Lose the Choice Band on Toxicroak. Toxicroak's beauty is the fact that it can come in on things like Milotic, Azumarill, Omastar, Cloyster, Blastoise etc for free and then run through the team with boosted STAB attacks and Sucker Punch. Being able to switch its attacks around is one of its biggest advantages. I think you would be a lot better off with the following Swords Dance Toxicroak set:

Toxicroak @ Life Orb
Jolly - Dry Skin
4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Swords Dance / Low Kick / Sucker Punch / Ice Punch

An effective offense boosting sweeper is what you're lacking atm (Sceptile really doesn't cut it I'm afraid) and is what you need to break through the more bulky teams. It also means you're not hindering yourself with all those Choice items and no fallback switches.

The second point is that Sceptile seems to just be slapped onto this team as a "fast sweeper" with no real regard as to what it's bringing to the table. Right now, basically everything that Sceptile can come in on Torterra can come in on easier, and these things won't last the entire match. Priority is too common for a Sub Liechi Berry set to reliably work as well, as tempting as Overgrow abuse is. Looking at your team, there are many weaknesses that could be patched up using this last slot. How do you deal with a Howl Arcanine, uncommon as it may be? A boosted Flare Blitz or ExtremeSpeed decimates everything. How about DD Feraligatr? If it gets a DD in on a choice locked Pursuit or your current choice locked Sucker Punch, it's practically GG as Waterfall / Earthquake / Ice Punch hits all but Alakazam super effectively for KOs (and Zam's not tanking anything anytime soon). And once Steelix blows up, like it evidently does all too often, you have very little defense against an SD Scyther or a Guts Swellow.

Replacing Sceptile with Azumarill will help cover many of these weaknesses, while also tightening up your team's synergy quite a bit. The following set is what I recommend:

Azumarill @ Leftovers
Adamant - Huge Power
252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Spe
Double-Edge / Aqua Jet / Ice Punch / Waterfall

It acts as a safety net against so many threats that otherwise threaten your other sweepers. It also helps you get your other Pokemon in a lot easier - Azumarill lures in bulky waters to wall its STAB, which in turn gives Toxicroak an opportunity to set up in the case of Milotic, or Torterra to come in and get SR up / hit something very hard in the case of Slowbro/king. Conversely, if Toxicroak or Torterra takes out their respective bulky water, or if Steelix Explodes on one, Azumarill has free reign to harrass the opposing team.

Try out these two changes, I think they'll bring you much more success with this team. (I tried my hardest to resist telling you to replace your weird Steelix set, but you already know my opinion on that :P). Best of luck eh.

Hi,

Very fun and unorthodox lead, and that Steelix set oddly seems like it could work quite well. There's not much left for me to say, Legacy Raider was spot on about swapping to an SD Toxicroak and a Bulky Azumarill.

On Houndoom, I'd suggest trying out a MixDoom set. It still traps Ghosts, but gives you the freedom to switch attacks. It can also surprise random stuff like Dugtrio or Swellow, making it easier for Sceptile to sweep:

Houndoom@Life Orb
252 Atk, 252 Spe, 4 Sp Atk
Hasty
- Sucker Punch
- Fire Blast
- HP Rock/ Crunch
- Pursuit

Nice team, and gl.

Hi there,

Well it seems all major problems have already been pointed out by the previous raters, so I'll assume you have taken LR's suggestions and work from there:

First, I believe Houndoom should be working with a standart NP set. My reasoning for saying that is because one of Steelix's main perks (and the only one IMHO) is that it's a great bait for unsuspecting Milotic's, on which's face you'll be going boom more often then not. With Milotic out of the way it should be much easier for this dawg here to get its sweep:

Houndoom @ Life Orb
EVs: 100 Atk/252 Spe/156 SpAtk (I believe this is enough for you to OHKO Dugtrio after rocks)
Nature: Hasty
- Sucker Punch
- Fire Blast
- Nasty Plot
- Dark Pulse

Now that you've lost your main way of trapping Ghosts I'd like to suggest Spiritomb over Alakazam. Outside of being a pretty good Ghost killer, Lead Spiritomb also helps with your pontential Swellow weakness, who runs through your team if Steelix has already gone boom or died due to whatever reason, which it seems will happen more often than not; and adding an always important and much needed Fighting immunity to your team, especially because your other resist is paper bag bulky.

I think that's it, not much to say as the main points have already been addressed. Good Luck =)