Mind Games

So, it's been a while. When I first joined here, I was a complete noob. Smogon has changed me a lot; made me a much better battler in not even a year. And now... I have 1,000 posts. Man, time files.

Anyway, after some thinking, I decided I would be completely original (not) and make a 1k RMT. I was originally going to make it with Substitute + Baton Pass Jolteon as it was a set that I had used before, but I wanted to use it at its best. But... using Zoroark in OU is like a drug addiction. I've gotta do it. So, I did it.

But now, I face competition from... My past self. On July 31, 2012, I posted a team called Dragons and Zoroark. It was exactly what it said on the tin. It was just a Deo-D Dragon spam team with Zoroark thrown into the mix. However, I was genuinely surprised when the team actually got nominated for the Rate My Team Archive, especially when I didn't even think the team was archive worthy. So now, I was thinking, "Fuck, how do I beat that?"

Now... I may have found the answer. I thought of that team's shortcomings (slight weakness to Keldeo) and thought of how I could make it more original (Deoxys-D is the most unoriginal thing ever). This is the result, and after testing it, I concluded that the team was worthy of being my 1k RMT.



Landorus-Therian (M) @ Leftovers
Trait: Intimidate
EVs: 200 HP / 64 Atk / 244 Def
Adamant Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge
- U-turn

Landorus-T is one of the best Pokemon in the game. It tanks physical hits like a boss thanks to Intimidate, and with 376 Attack with the given EVs, it's no slouch offensively either. It can also use its slow U-turn to get my Pokemon in safely (especially Zoroark who can't really switch in on attacks that well). This makes it a perfect choice for Stealth Rock in my eyes.

However, for a while, I was hesitant on adding it. My past experiences with Landorus-T were... Not that good. However, it fits in perfectly on this team. Most of my Pokemon are decidedly not that bulky on the physical end, so Landorus-T can sponge those physical hits when I need them sponged and hit back hard in return. This thing is great. Use it.

Synergy:
Water: Starmie, Keldeo, Latias
Ice: Starmie, Keldeo, Scizor



Zoroark @ Choice Specs
Trait: Illusion
EVs: 252 SAtk / 252 Spd / 4 SDef
Timid Nature
- Dark Pulse
- Flamethrower
- Focus Blast
- Trick

Well, you all knew it was coming, so I may as well get it out here now. Ever since Black & White 2 were released, I have been absolutely addicted to Trick Zoroark. Man, Tricking dangerous stuff into coming in is like the best feeling ever, but that's not all Zoroark is good for. Keldeo is stopped cold by Jellicent.... but what if that Keldeo is a Zoroark?

I chose a Choice Specs set because man, this is some powerful shit. Unlike Tyranitar, it can also use Trick to cripple some stallmons, and as we all know, stallmons are no fun. Also, Zoroark guarantees that Deoxys-D is getting at most one layer of hazards against me, doing 80% minimum with Dark Pulse. It also has respectable Speed and power, so it can pull off a late-game sweep with Dark Pulse if there is no other alternative. Plus, Zoroark has this risk factor unrivaled by any other Pokemon, but play your cards right and the payoff is great. (maybe this is why Zoroark is like a drug? idk)

Synergy:
Fighting: Starmie, Landorus-T, Latias
Bug: Landorus-T, Keldeo, Scizor



Starmie @ Leftovers
Trait: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 SAtk / 4 SDef
Timid Nature
- Surf
- Psyshock
- Thunderbolt
- Rapid Spin

Why does a team without a Pokemon weak to Stealth Rocks need a spinner? Well, the main reason is because I end up disguising Zoroark as Keldeo many times, and I would like to be able to keep that disguise intact. Also, if Spikes are down and I need to disguise Zoroark as Latias for whatever reason, I want those Spikes off the field. Once Jellicent is gone (got Zoroark for that), good luck spinblocking this thing.

Starmie does more than just spinning, though. It also serves as a back-up check to Keldeo - In fact, I have Leftovers on it to improve its longevity, mainly for that very reason. Besides Keldeo, Psyshock is also helpful for breaking through Gengar. Ultimately, Starmie has ended up being a very important member that keeps this team together.

Synergy:
Bug: Landorus-T, Keldeo, Scizor
Ghost: Zoroark, Scizor
Grass: Latias, Scizor
Electric: Landorus-T, Latias
Dark: Zoroark, Scizor, Keldeo



Keldeo-Resolute @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Justified
EVs: 252 SAtk / 252 Spd / 4 SDef
Timid Nature
- Surf
- Hydro Pump
- Secret Sword
- Hidden Power [Ice]

So Keldeo returns for another round in OU. I'm not surprised. It's a good Pokemon, but not broken at all. Anyway, Keldeo has two main roles: 1. Revenge kill, 2. Take advantage of enemy Rain. With Zoroark luring in and eliminating Jellicent while disguised as it or Scizor, while I have many ways of handling Tentacruel, Keldeo's job is even easier. While the analysis recommends Choice Scarf Keldeo to be used on Rain teams, it's even good when not on them.

The big things Keldeo is here for revenging are: Dragonite, Salamence, Tornadus-I, Thundurus-T, and many others it can take on. On top of this, it's also a picture-perfect switch-in to Scizor and Cloyster, making these threats significantly easier to handle. Keldeo is probably this team's MVP.

Synergy:
Flying: none
Grass: Latias, Scizor
Electric: Landorus-T, Latias
Psychic: Zoroark, Scizor, Latias



Latias (F) @ Life Orb
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 72 HP / 252 Spd / 184 SAtk
Timid Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Surf
- Psyshock
- Recover

Is it just me, or have I made a ton of teams with LO Latias? There's probably a good reason for this, though. Life Orb Latias is just a good all-around Pokemon. It can sponge Water moves thanks to its great Special bulk, it can check common Sun team members, it checks Keldeo, and thanks to Recover, it just lasts forever! What more could you want? I don't really have much more to say about Latias, just that it hits really fucking hard with Draco Meteor and that's awesome. There's really not much more to say about it that hasn't already been said.

Synergy:
Bug: Landorus-T, Keldeo, Scizor
Ghost: Zoroark, Scizor
Ice: Starmie, Keldeo, Scizor
Dragon: Scizor
Dark: Zoroark, Scizor, Keldeo



Scizor @ Life Orb
Trait: Technician
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spd / 4 SDef
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Bullet Punch
- Bug Bite
- Superpower

Ugh, Scizor... This guy is good, but on this team, he just feels so.... Dispensable. Setting up is not incredibly easy or anything, especially when considering it has fewer resistances than Pokemon like Lucario and a neutrality to Rock. However, I needed a Steel-type with some priority for picking off weakened threats, and also wanted a set-up sweeper. Scizor was the first one I thought of due to its ability to be disguised as Zoroark easily.

As I've said before, Scizor seems dispensable. I've never been in any situation where I was like "OMG! This thing is so AWESOME!", although I have never been in any situations where it was decidedly bad. The whole priority thing is helpful, though I know there are other Pokemon that can do the Priority + Setup + Steel-type job too.... As in, Lucario, but I just wasn't sure if Lucario would be a good fit for this team.

Synergy:
Fire: Starmie, Keldeo, Latias

---------------


I had lots of fun with this team. While I was playing around with it, I found it was like a team that leaned towards heavy offense, yet I was able to make my opponents work hard to get KOs. The team has a huge weakness to Toxicroak and a notable weakness to Volcarona, but other than that, it's been working incredibly well for me.

Importable:

Hey. I'm just posting here so I can be the first person to post here. Lol, jk. Anyway, about that Volcarona problem, I see the Bulky Volcarona set being the most threatening. I've very recently build a sun team around it, and today it had a fairly easy time setting up on a Keldeo (cause of the sun and it was locked into hydro pump)! Anyway, to resolve that, may I suggest maybe Scarf Terrakion over Keldeo? I know that your Keldeo serves as a check to rain teams and is kind of a reason why you build this team, so you can disregard me if you'd like. Thereason why I suggest Terrakion is because LO Latias is already a decent partial rain check. Zoroark can disguise itself as Terrakion to lure steel types (Skarmory) that wall it and think they have a free turn to set up Spikes or something. However, they will be hit by Flamethrower instead! Anyway, just a suggestion. I'll add some stuff to this rate when I'm less busy. Congradulations on the 1,000 posts, though.

Thanks for the rate!

I have considered Scarf Terrakion, but I ultimately decided against it since it makes the team weaker to Cloyster. That, and I think removing Keldeo would put too much pressure on Landorus-T to handle Scizor (Lando-T WILL go down eventually since it has no reliable recovery) I'm currently looking for other fixes to the Volcarona problem, but if I can't find anything else I may try Terrakion.

Yeah. I first saw Dragons and Zoroark a while back, and after looking at that team, I think we can both agree you're probably a lot more experienced at competitive than I am. :D

Hey Lucaroark, again, nice team!

Your weakness to Sun teams is definitely evident. You don't run a weather of your own, making SR not enough to mitigate switches, and your Latias can be taken down with a well timed Sleep Poweder or Bug Buzz from Volarona. You also don't have any bulky steel types on your team, and especially since you have a Latias and Keldeo, you'll be finding Lati@s a pain to beat, since Scizor isn't bulky enough to take hits nor can it trap / kill those threats. Now, what I'm suggesting you do might sound a bit odd at first, but I'll be sure to explain my rationale. I suggest you make Scizor Banded.

Scizor @ Choice Band
Adamant / 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 Spe
Bullet Punch / U-Turn / Pursuit / Superpower

First and foremost, this Scizor is a lot bulkier than your current one, and it can trap / kill Lati@s and other special attackers. Being able to throw Scizor in to tank a few hits will never hurt, especially since max speed isn't helping you beat anything. The right-away fire power is another thing I think Band Scizor has over your current one. It lets you revenge kill faster sweepers like Venasaur much easier, significantly decreasing your weakness to it. Scizor's U-Turn will also help you form a hazard abusing core with Landorus to dismantle or at least heavily damage your opponent's offense. Bullet Punch is your main STAB and it is another way to revenge kill should Keldeo not be able to do it. U-Turn is to pivot, and Pursuit lets you trap special attackers. Superpower lets you beat steel types like Heatran or Magnezone, so it'll help occasionally.

Now, it appears as if Scizor makes you weaker to Volcarona, but if anything, it's the exact opposite. BPunch now hits harder, decreasing the amount of HP you have to take away to revenge it, and it's not any more weak to Volc. Also, due to the offensive nature of your team, Volcarona should not have the opportunity to setup at all- as Keldeo and Lando can OHKO it and Latias / Starmie can dent it. Even Zoroark can disguise as a Scizor, Trick its specs, and force Volc out. Scizor's added power will only help you. It can also beat Toxicroak a whole lot more efficiently, as it can shrug off a DPunch and KO with BPunch.

One last thing. You might have some trouble beating Steel types such as Ferrothorn or Forretress. To help mitigate this, I would give Latias HP Fire over Surf. This gives you another way to hit the x4 weaks, prevents you from being trapped+killed by Scizor, and also gives you added power against Sun. With Starmie and Keldeo as excellent checks to Rain and sources for water, Surf on Latias is not as necessary.

Anyway, cool team. I hope I helped!

Hey Electrolyte, thanks for the rate!

I am definitely going to test out CB Scizor, now that I think about it. Not just for the reasons you mentioned though, but also because having an additional U-turn user to help Zoroark get in would be really beneficial. I've hardly been able to get many opportunities to set up anyway (though one of the times I did ended up making me laugh my ass off). HP Fire also seems like it'd help out (especially for Ferrothorn, and maybe for hitting Skarmory harder than Draco Meteor can), so I'll test that too.

Hey nice team! Now you probably and most likely have twice the experience in ou wifi battle but I think I have something that can help.

Scizor>>>Jirachi

Jirachi can run the triple punch iron head set with a scarf. He cripples easily and can slow some teams down right on the spot. He requires no setting up by the only issue I see is the weaknesses. You have 4 resistances to fire, I'm almost certain you don't wanna risk zoroak sponging a ghost attack as it may give up his identity pretty fast. As for ground you have Latias. Jirachi may help a bit. There's also great specially defensive sets but scizor looked like a sweeper so if you wanna keep that role there with a steel type. Jirachi seems pretty logical. I'm not sure, as I said you have a lot more experience but just something I think might help.


Ps sorry I couldnt get all fancy with pics and such I'm on my iPad






Jirachi @ choice scarf
Jolly/serene grace
252spd 252 atk 4SpD

-thunder punch/body slam
-ice punch
-fire punch
-iron head

Umm... Not too sure about Jirachi. I did build a Hail team during the Genesect era that used ScarfRachi pretty well, but the thing is, I'm just not sure if this is one of those teams. ScarfRachi is relatively weak, to start off. 100 base Attack with no boosting nature/item and no moves with greater than 120 Base Power (after STAB) is definitely not starting off on a good note. A Flying resist is cool, but not as cool as slow U-turns (since I will probably be changing Scizor's set to CB) helping my stuff get in safely (seriously it's so cool). That, and Scarf Keldeo already revenge kills most of what Scarf Jirachi does, except for like.... Uhh..... Idk. I'm having a really hard time justifying ScarfRachi at the moment.

Hey, great team you've got there!

I've got a suggestion you could use to help you against Volcarona or Sun Teams in general. It involves replacing Scizor, since you say he's dispensable and he's quite useless against most Sun Pokes.

I'd recommend using a Specially Defensive Heatran. Specially Defensive Heatran is a fantastic check to any Volcarona, except the rare few that run HP Ground, if you're concerned about that, or Dugtrio, you could always run an Air Balloon. In addition, Heatran has excellent synergy with Landorus-T, since they resist all each other's weaknesses with the exception of Water, for which you have Keldeo and Latias. They also take hits on each side of the spectrum, so that adds to the synergy. You could also run Stealth Rock on Heatran which would, if you wanted, allow you to run something like Superpower or Gravity on Landorus-T.

Hope this helps!

Set

Normally I steer clear of using SpD Heatran since I've found it to kill offensive pressure, but it's true that it's good at beating non-HP Ground Volcarona. If CB Scizor doesn't go well I'll be sure to give some kind of Heatran set a try.

Hey LucaroarkZ, nice team!

The biggest problem I've noticed is that you're incredibly weak to sun teams. You have Keldeo and Starmie, both of which have their STABs weakened under the sun, and they're both destroyed by the common Grass types found in sun, you have Scizor, who is utterly destroyed by all the Fire types, and you have Zoroark who is incredibly frail. Your only answers to sun are Landorus-T and Latias, your Landorus-T is going to cause the opposing sun team lots of trouble switching in, but it can't do much in terms of stopping faster threats. Latias is amazing at switching in on alot of common sun pokemon, but it's destroyed by Volcarona and after very little residual damage you'll be KOed by a +2 Venusaur Sludge Bomb before you know it. After Latias is gone, your team is straight up swept by +2 Venusaur, if that wasn't bad enough +1 Volcarona outspeeds and OHKOs your entire team, other than Keldeo, with its dual STABs. But Keldeo can't stop it, with sun hindering its Hydro Pump, Keldeo is beaten by +1 Volcarona 1 on 1, especially if the Volcarona has Giga Drain. To help remedy this situation, I suggest running a Dragonite (Banded if you keep Scizor the same, Dragon Dance if you change Scizor to Band) over your current Latias. Dragonite easily resolves your Volcarona problem, and it takes on Venusaur better than Latias does, unless Venusaur has Hidden Power [Ice], in which case Scizor will wall Venusaur. Dragonite still has very similiar resists to Latias, ( Fire, Water, Grass, Fighting etc), admittedly it does make you weaker to Electric types, but that's a small price to pay to make sure you aren't swept by common sun threats. Dragonite has other benefits as well, most notably being its priority, which helps a ton with revenge killing. It does have a weakness to Stealth Rock, but that's covered nicely with Starmie's Rapid Spin support. I love LO Latias, and I hate to suggest getting rid of it, but in your team Dragonite is the superior option.

Anyway, I hope this rate helped and GL with the team :)

Thanks for the rate TGMD!

I hadn't even thought of Dragonite, and it will definitely help against Sun teams. I'll be sure to test it out as soon as I can.

Hey LucaroarkZ nice team!

There is really not much I can say about this team. Electrolyte and TGMD both gave you great suggestions I agree with. My only suggestion is using a Defensive Rapid Spin Starmie>Offensive Starmie the main reason behind this is because spinning seems like quite an important job for your team, after all it is key to keep Zoroaks identity hidden and if you decide to go with Dragonite, preserve its mulitiscale as well. The Starmie has similar coverage to your current one with Psyshock and 216 speed evs letting it outspeed Gengar and beat it super effectively. Scald is prefered over Surf because it still has respectable power but the 30% burn chance is great. With Recover this Starmie can stay around for longer letting you Rapid Spin more often.

Good luck!

Set
TL:DR


~Superpowerdude

Thanks for the rate Superpowerdude!

I'll be sure to take bulky Starmie for a spin, not just for a spinner that lasts longer, but also for a Keldeo check that'll last a while since I'll probably be replacing Latias with Dragonite.

LucaroarkZ, very impressive team!

I'm a huge fan of your teams, and you even inspired me to use Zoroark quite often! Dark STAB has proven to be very dangerous in many situations.

As for your team, I love the Keldeo disguise. Jellicent is a menace to water Pokémon everywhere, and using Zoroark has helped in warding it off.

I understand where everyone else is seeing the "hole" where a Sun team could wreak havoc, but that can be solved very easily with some tweaking. All you would really need is a strong Dragon type to resist the onslaught of fire/grass (which you mostly covered already with Latias).

One more thing: Do you find a Timid Nasty plot set on Zoroark to be effective? I know it doesn't have particularly good bulk to survive any major hits, but it may be possible to force switches by disguising as revenge killers. I want to know what you think.

Do I have a fanclub now? Umm.... Ok

I'm not sure why, but last time I used Nasty Plot Zoroark in OU, it was decidedly not that good. Of course, this was back when Genesect was allowed in OU, so I'm not sure. I wouldn't say NP Zoroark would be effective on this team, but on other teams it might be.

Hey there LucaroarkZ :) nice team. I always thought Zoroark looked interesting but never tested him out for some reason. He looks very useful as a way to remove pesky counters to Keldeo. I can see this becoming one of my favourite strategies.

I love messing around with peoples teams but unfortunately (for me) I have little to improve on your team. However there is one thing I can suggest, and that is to test offensive Heatran in place of Scizor. The set has a unique twist on it, due to Landorus-T packing Stealth Rock there is space in Heatrans moveset for Substitute. This allows it to avoid annoying status effects like paralysis and fire off powerful attacks against the switch in safely. Heatran is an effective check against almost all sun threats so it patches up this weakness nicely while still providing the dragon resist that Scizor did. It even helps with Dugtrio if you can keep your Substitute up. Obviously use Leftovers if you decide to use Substitute.

Kudos again for the team, and congrats on 1000 posts. And if you have a fanclub then I will gladly join it ;)

Question:

Why use Keldeo-R when it must know Secret Sword, whereas Keldeo can either know or not know it? Isn't that just giving information to your opponent?

Zowayix said:

Question:

Why use Keldeo-R when it must know Secret Sword, whereas Keldeo can either know or not know it? Isn't that just giving information to your opponent?

Click to expand...

Keldeo-R looks cooler, and any decent player will assume Keldeo has Secret Sword anyway, so that point is moot.