Hello and thank you to anyone reading this.
I've only recently started playing competitive pokemon, and generally made meh balanced teams or generic weather ones, until one day I decided to go full stall. This is not the story of that team. That team was actually quite decent (Tangrowth/Chansey/Forretress/Spiritomb/Vaporeon/Heatran, if you care for it), but more importantly it led to a thought where I was like "Fuck Spikes," and so the concept for this team was born.
At this point you may notice the sort of common theme of this team; every member is immune to Spikes/Toxic Spikes and also not weak to SR. This inherently gives it a major advantage over other hazard stacking teams because this team simply does not take much residual damage, compounded by the fact that 4 members are immune to sandstorm. Additionally, there is no pressure to add a rapid spinner, which frees up some team flexibility. With the ubiquity of Ferrothorn and other common Spikers/Toxic Spikers in the current metagame, I am able to chuckle often when my opponent decides to indiscriminately spend turns Spiking.
Also of note is that I almost entirely give up breaking through on the physical side, and instead go for the pink blobs, because as I've found playing this team, hazards actually make them easier to break through with momentum than Skarm/Glis. A noticeable advantage to this is that since most teams carry a physical wall or two, that is essentially one or two slots I don't have to worry about.
As for recorded success, I'm currently at 1223/8 rated battles in on the alt Right Places, which may seem like a small sample size, but I've played many more unrated battles since I'm trying to avoid laddering much until after the 18th.
I'm surprised this team has held up as well as it has seeing as most of the current incarnation was thrown together very quickly as almost a gimmick team.
The first version was almost literally the first 6 mons I thought of that were unaffected by spikes. I used standard sets for all of them, and found that things were actually working quite well.
However, I felt the team was lacking bulk, so I replaced Thundurus with Latias. For some reason, Thundurus seems a lot more threatening playing against him than with him, or maybe I was running into too many sand teams with Excadrill. Also, SR weakness does not fit with the theme, though restricting that may be silly.
As of the last change, which really happened at the same time as the previous one, I replaced Gengar with scarfed Landorus since I felt like Gengar was kind of redundant, and I noticed a severe Volcarona weakness.
Of course, even though this team has been quite successful, I definitely feel like it can be improved, which is part of why I'm posting this.
Skarmory (F) @ Shed Shell
Trait: Sturdy
EVs: 252 HP / 244 def / 12 spd
Impish Nature (+Def, -SAtk)
-Roost
-Spikes
-Whirlwind
-Brave Bird
Probably the most important member of the team. Day after day the metal bird marches into battle to get smacked around Outrages, U-Turns, and generally everything physical mons can throw at her and outlasts them all. Shed Shell is so Magnezone isn't auto win. Skarm > Scor here because of Spikes, WW, no 4x weakness, dragon resistance, does not drop momentum as easily, and generally more bulk. The extra EVs in speed are kind of random, but they'd make little difference in bulk anyway, and I suppose they allow me to outspeed stuff trying to outspeed min speed.
Possible changes: Probably nothing. Standard Skarmory fits perfectly into my team.
Bronzong @ Leftovers
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 84 Atk / 80 Def / 92 SDef
Sassy Nature (+SDef, -Spd)
-Stealth Rock
-Gyro Ball
-Hidden Power [Ice]
-Earthquake
Bronzong is my designated punching bag. It always gets rocks up and is what I usually switch in to powerful dragon special attackers (read: Latios, Hydreigon), which are probably the scariest threats to this team. Zong can usually retaliate with Gyro Ball as most of the time he switches into a dragon move. It deals with the mixed dragons (Dragonite/Salamence) and kills them with HP Ice, and I can usually anticipate if a dragon is going to be mixed from team context, like Dragonite on a rain team. Other threats he handles are Tyranitar, where gradual damage goes a long way toward a Latias/Reuniclus sweep even though Tar may carry Fire Blast, as that's still a 3HKO; Jirachi, as Bronzong is clearly the better Steel/Psychic, and Jirachi fails to do anything significant while Zong 2-3HKOs, depending on residual damage; Gliscor, though I suppose my team doesn't really care about Gliscor, but still, Bronzong is the best switch to any Gliscor; Deoxys-S, to be safe about LO variants; Tornadus; and really anything I'm unsure about. Basically, Bronzong acts as a first line of defense and is very good at its job even though he's a defensive pokemon running 3 attacks and SR. Coverage HP Fire doesn't get past Bronzong's defenses, and it's fun to defeat even Balloonzone trying to trap you. Leftovers go a long way toward extending longevity since residual damage does not do much and he's commonly looking at getting 3HKO'd at worst from a lot of stuff. Zong is the designated paralysis and sleep absorber, and I'm kind of rambling off at this point, so I suppose if I were to describe Bronzong in a word, it would be glue. Or fearless.
Possible changes: I'm using the site's standard EVs but I'm not sold it's the best spread. More SDef would be nice. Also, if there's any move that replaceable, it's Gyro Ball.
Rotom-W @ Leftovers
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 112 HP / 252 SAtk / 144 Spd
Modest Nature (+SAtk, -Atk)
-Volt Switch
-Hydro Pump
-Thunder Wave
-Pain Split
Standard Rotom-W except with Thunder Wave over Will-O-Wisp. I find this works better since physical threats are not really going to be staying in on Rot-W, while Latias/Latios/Virizion do not enjoy paralysis, though this team can't really take advantage of paralysis support. It also provides a nice platform to Volt Switch off of in scouting the switch in for free damage, though if Celebi or Blissey is the obvious switch in, I'll just immediately Volt Switch to Landorus and keep momentum. Also helps defeat rain and is usually what I lead against it. Really, that's the gist of Rotom-W. Forces a lot of switches and has cool typing. Also, I left its nature as Hardy for the longest time. Don't you hate it when that happens?
Possible changes: I feel like Rotom-W is the most replaceable member, but that's not to say he's not good.
Reuniclus (F) @ Leftovers
Trait: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SDef
Bold Nature (+Def, -Atk)
-Calm Mind
-Recover
-Psychic
-Focus Blast
Sweeper. Once Ttar and Scizor are eliminated or at low enough health, which is made possible by lots of hazards and general chip damage, Reuniclus can go for the sweep. Also is bulky enough to emergency check stuff like Terrakion, and Ferrothorn everywhere is a free license to come back in Recover to safe levels of health. Absorbs burn, toxic, and leech seed, which can be rather annoying for this team. I don't really know what else to say, as its function is pretty clear for the team.
Possible changes: Psyshock over Psychic. Opposing CM Reuniclus is dangerous though I can usually set up first with Reuniclus or Latias.
Latias (F) @ Leftovers
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
-Dragon Pulse
-Substitute
-Calm Mind
-Recover
The 3rd member of the team with the ability Levitate, Latias has been on a good share of my previous teams, and I've found SubCM to be both a dangerous sweeper and useful special wall against stuff like Rotom-W. This allows her to steal momentum effectively as she takes a NVE hit and immediately threatens to start setting up for a sweep. Like Reuniclus, I don't feel like there's that much more to expand on here.
Possible Changes: Roar over Substitute. I'm kind of reluctant to change this because status ruins my day, but shuffling is cool.
Landorus (M) @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Sand Force
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature (+Spd, -SAtk)
-Earthquake
-Stone Edge
-U-turn
-Hammer Arm
Landorus patches up some holes in this team, serving as revenge killer and in particular checking Volcarona. He also provids just enough physical presence to deal with Blissey/Chansey, as an ideal situation is where I have Rotom-W out and full hazards down, and Blissey comes in to take the hit, only for Volt Switch to send Landorus out. From there, I'm in a good position to Hammer Arm to finish Blissey/Chansey, or U-turn to keep momentum going while still being able to finish the pink blobs later since another round of hazards will put them in KO range for Latias's Dragon Pulse or another Rotom-W Volt Switch. Usually, though, Landorus sees the least action out of all the team members due to his role and no recovery. No HP Ice because Gliscor is not the problem. Also my usually lead against Ttar sand teams. Landorus can also occasionally clean-up late game.
Possible Changes: Rock Slide over Stone Edge seems like a really good idea. I'm really not sure why I haven't changed this yet.
Team member changes I've considered:
Latios over Latias. This presents a drop in durability, but Latios can should be able to make up for it offensively. I think an offensive CM set would be nice. Your input would be appreciated.
Hydreigon over Rotom-W. I've never used Hydreigon, and while the typing change might be a loss, Dragon/Fire coverage is cool. Again, input would be appreciated.
Mienshao over Landorus. Mienshao being weak to Spikes is offset by Regenerator, so that issue is not a problem. Scarfed Mienshao, of course, but they are quite similar and, it's really just a matter of HJK vs Earthquake for physical pressure.
Gengar somewhere. This is because Gengar seems cool. Not sure where he'd fit though.
Other Notes:
No spinblocker is okay since most spinners are simply not durable enough to stay over the course of the match while Skarmory and Bronzong have plenty of opportunities to set up their hazards again and again. Additionally, Rapid Spin is basically a free turn to do whatever.
The biggest threats to this team are fast strong special attackers. It takes good prediction, but usually I can get past them with such.
The most common battle agenda is eliminating Ttar and/or Scizor. This is made easy by switching doing a lot to them and not that much to me.
Really powerful attacks in sun spam is difficult to deal with as in my opinion, sun is the hardest weather to deal with as non-weather, but this is a loss I am prepared to accept if I have to use Heatran or something, as this greatly reduces the humor value of seeing Dugtrio on the other team.
If you'd like to suggest a team member, keep in mind the strength of this team lies in the inherent advantage taking no damage from spikes gives.
Thanks again for reading this. Really.
Also, I tried a UU take on this idea, and it sucked. Then again I didn't try Weezing or Cresselia when the problem was that it didn't have enough bulk, so maybe someone else could do it better. No steel type sucks though.
Introduction
I've only recently started playing competitive pokemon, and generally made meh balanced teams or generic weather ones, until one day I decided to go full stall. This is not the story of that team. That team was actually quite decent (Tangrowth/Chansey/Forretress/Spiritomb/Vaporeon/Heatran, if you care for it), but more importantly it led to a thought where I was like "Fuck Spikes," and so the concept for this team was born.
At a Glance
At this point you may notice the sort of common theme of this team; every member is immune to Spikes/Toxic Spikes and also not weak to SR. This inherently gives it a major advantage over other hazard stacking teams because this team simply does not take much residual damage, compounded by the fact that 4 members are immune to sandstorm. Additionally, there is no pressure to add a rapid spinner, which frees up some team flexibility. With the ubiquity of Ferrothorn and other common Spikers/Toxic Spikers in the current metagame, I am able to chuckle often when my opponent decides to indiscriminately spend turns Spiking.
Also of note is that I almost entirely give up breaking through on the physical side, and instead go for the pink blobs, because as I've found playing this team, hazards actually make them easier to break through with momentum than Skarm/Glis. A noticeable advantage to this is that since most teams carry a physical wall or two, that is essentially one or two slots I don't have to worry about.
As for recorded success, I'm currently at 1223/8 rated battles in on the alt Right Places, which may seem like a small sample size, but I've played many more unrated battles since I'm trying to avoid laddering much until after the 18th.
Team Building
I'm surprised this team has held up as well as it has seeing as most of the current incarnation was thrown together very quickly as almost a gimmick team.
The first version was almost literally the first 6 mons I thought of that were unaffected by spikes. I used standard sets for all of them, and found that things were actually working quite well.
However, I felt the team was lacking bulk, so I replaced Thundurus with Latias. For some reason, Thundurus seems a lot more threatening playing against him than with him, or maybe I was running into too many sand teams with Excadrill. Also, SR weakness does not fit with the theme, though restricting that may be silly.
As of the last change, which really happened at the same time as the previous one, I replaced Gengar with scarfed Landorus since I felt like Gengar was kind of redundant, and I noticed a severe Volcarona weakness.
Of course, even though this team has been quite successful, I definitely feel like it can be improved, which is part of why I'm posting this.
A More In-Depth Look
Skarmory (F) @ Shed Shell
Trait: Sturdy
EVs: 252 HP / 244 def / 12 spd
Impish Nature (+Def, -SAtk)
-Roost
-Spikes
-Whirlwind
-Brave Bird
Probably the most important member of the team. Day after day the metal bird marches into battle to get smacked around Outrages, U-Turns, and generally everything physical mons can throw at her and outlasts them all. Shed Shell is so Magnezone isn't auto win. Skarm > Scor here because of Spikes, WW, no 4x weakness, dragon resistance, does not drop momentum as easily, and generally more bulk. The extra EVs in speed are kind of random, but they'd make little difference in bulk anyway, and I suppose they allow me to outspeed stuff trying to outspeed min speed.
Possible changes: Probably nothing. Standard Skarmory fits perfectly into my team.
Bronzong @ Leftovers
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 84 Atk / 80 Def / 92 SDef
Sassy Nature (+SDef, -Spd)
-Stealth Rock
-Gyro Ball
-Hidden Power [Ice]
-Earthquake
Bronzong is my designated punching bag. It always gets rocks up and is what I usually switch in to powerful dragon special attackers (read: Latios, Hydreigon), which are probably the scariest threats to this team. Zong can usually retaliate with Gyro Ball as most of the time he switches into a dragon move. It deals with the mixed dragons (Dragonite/Salamence) and kills them with HP Ice, and I can usually anticipate if a dragon is going to be mixed from team context, like Dragonite on a rain team. Other threats he handles are Tyranitar, where gradual damage goes a long way toward a Latias/Reuniclus sweep even though Tar may carry Fire Blast, as that's still a 3HKO; Jirachi, as Bronzong is clearly the better Steel/Psychic, and Jirachi fails to do anything significant while Zong 2-3HKOs, depending on residual damage; Gliscor, though I suppose my team doesn't really care about Gliscor, but still, Bronzong is the best switch to any Gliscor; Deoxys-S, to be safe about LO variants; Tornadus; and really anything I'm unsure about. Basically, Bronzong acts as a first line of defense and is very good at its job even though he's a defensive pokemon running 3 attacks and SR. Coverage HP Fire doesn't get past Bronzong's defenses, and it's fun to defeat even Balloonzone trying to trap you. Leftovers go a long way toward extending longevity since residual damage does not do much and he's commonly looking at getting 3HKO'd at worst from a lot of stuff. Zong is the designated paralysis and sleep absorber, and I'm kind of rambling off at this point, so I suppose if I were to describe Bronzong in a word, it would be glue. Or fearless.
Possible changes: I'm using the site's standard EVs but I'm not sold it's the best spread. More SDef would be nice. Also, if there's any move that replaceable, it's Gyro Ball.
Rotom-W @ Leftovers
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 112 HP / 252 SAtk / 144 Spd
Modest Nature (+SAtk, -Atk)
-Volt Switch
-Hydro Pump
-Thunder Wave
-Pain Split
Standard Rotom-W except with Thunder Wave over Will-O-Wisp. I find this works better since physical threats are not really going to be staying in on Rot-W, while Latias/Latios/Virizion do not enjoy paralysis, though this team can't really take advantage of paralysis support. It also provides a nice platform to Volt Switch off of in scouting the switch in for free damage, though if Celebi or Blissey is the obvious switch in, I'll just immediately Volt Switch to Landorus and keep momentum. Also helps defeat rain and is usually what I lead against it. Really, that's the gist of Rotom-W. Forces a lot of switches and has cool typing. Also, I left its nature as Hardy for the longest time. Don't you hate it when that happens?
Possible changes: I feel like Rotom-W is the most replaceable member, but that's not to say he's not good.
Reuniclus (F) @ Leftovers
Trait: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SDef
Bold Nature (+Def, -Atk)
-Calm Mind
-Recover
-Psychic
-Focus Blast
Sweeper. Once Ttar and Scizor are eliminated or at low enough health, which is made possible by lots of hazards and general chip damage, Reuniclus can go for the sweep. Also is bulky enough to emergency check stuff like Terrakion, and Ferrothorn everywhere is a free license to come back in Recover to safe levels of health. Absorbs burn, toxic, and leech seed, which can be rather annoying for this team. I don't really know what else to say, as its function is pretty clear for the team.
Possible changes: Psyshock over Psychic. Opposing CM Reuniclus is dangerous though I can usually set up first with Reuniclus or Latias.
Latias (F) @ Leftovers
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
-Dragon Pulse
-Substitute
-Calm Mind
-Recover
The 3rd member of the team with the ability Levitate, Latias has been on a good share of my previous teams, and I've found SubCM to be both a dangerous sweeper and useful special wall against stuff like Rotom-W. This allows her to steal momentum effectively as she takes a NVE hit and immediately threatens to start setting up for a sweep. Like Reuniclus, I don't feel like there's that much more to expand on here.
Possible Changes: Roar over Substitute. I'm kind of reluctant to change this because status ruins my day, but shuffling is cool.
Landorus (M) @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Sand Force
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature (+Spd, -SAtk)
-Earthquake
-Stone Edge
-U-turn
-Hammer Arm
Landorus patches up some holes in this team, serving as revenge killer and in particular checking Volcarona. He also provids just enough physical presence to deal with Blissey/Chansey, as an ideal situation is where I have Rotom-W out and full hazards down, and Blissey comes in to take the hit, only for Volt Switch to send Landorus out. From there, I'm in a good position to Hammer Arm to finish Blissey/Chansey, or U-turn to keep momentum going while still being able to finish the pink blobs later since another round of hazards will put them in KO range for Latias's Dragon Pulse or another Rotom-W Volt Switch. Usually, though, Landorus sees the least action out of all the team members due to his role and no recovery. No HP Ice because Gliscor is not the problem. Also my usually lead against Ttar sand teams. Landorus can also occasionally clean-up late game.
Possible Changes: Rock Slide over Stone Edge seems like a really good idea. I'm really not sure why I haven't changed this yet.
Additional Comments
Team member changes I've considered:
Latios over Latias. This presents a drop in durability, but Latios can should be able to make up for it offensively. I think an offensive CM set would be nice. Your input would be appreciated.
Hydreigon over Rotom-W. I've never used Hydreigon, and while the typing change might be a loss, Dragon/Fire coverage is cool. Again, input would be appreciated.
Mienshao over Landorus. Mienshao being weak to Spikes is offset by Regenerator, so that issue is not a problem. Scarfed Mienshao, of course, but they are quite similar and, it's really just a matter of HJK vs Earthquake for physical pressure.
Gengar somewhere. This is because Gengar seems cool. Not sure where he'd fit though.
Other Notes:
No spinblocker is okay since most spinners are simply not durable enough to stay over the course of the match while Skarmory and Bronzong have plenty of opportunities to set up their hazards again and again. Additionally, Rapid Spin is basically a free turn to do whatever.
The biggest threats to this team are fast strong special attackers. It takes good prediction, but usually I can get past them with such.
The most common battle agenda is eliminating Ttar and/or Scizor. This is made easy by switching doing a lot to them and not that much to me.
Really powerful attacks in sun spam is difficult to deal with as in my opinion, sun is the hardest weather to deal with as non-weather, but this is a loss I am prepared to accept if I have to use Heatran or something, as this greatly reduces the humor value of seeing Dugtrio on the other team.
If you'd like to suggest a team member, keep in mind the strength of this team lies in the inherent advantage taking no damage from spikes gives.
Thanks again for reading this. Really.
Also, I tried a UU take on this idea, and it sucked. Then again I didn't try Weezing or Cresselia when the problem was that it didn't have enough bulk, so maybe someone else could do it better. No steel type sucks though.
