Suspect Ladder: Team Terror

Cheesy name I know. So my computer sort of works again and lately I've been trying to build a team. Whether its the mass usage of Toxic Spikes to the usurp of certain Pokemon, it's been quite a challenge. But I did notice that certain Pokemon stood out more; which meant I was more free with selection. Granted that this team still has some slight issues, I've actually been pretty proud of it.

[INPUT] (You can skip this if you want to)
Interestingly I wanted to use two Pokemon: Machamp and Alakazam, especially the latter. But in a twist: Machamp would be more supportive and Alakazam would be a pure Special Sweeper (in other words no Choice Specs). In the beginning it worked great and it did sweep teams with other choices like Curselax and other oddities. But two things just made me go into spouts of Outrage: Toxic Spikes and Sandstorm. Furthermore the duo needed help so I decided that it was the time to try Rain Dance in the mix with a twist: using Qwilfish as a sweeper and a Toxic Spikes absorber. Combined the team climbed up a little bit higher and has furthermore impressed me.

[COMMENTS]
To add, try not to "overchange" this team. I understand that times I can be EXTREMELY ARROGANT about suggestions when things work but if you notice something that needs a huge fix tell me here. And if it doesn't ingrain in my head, well... just yell at me or PM me. This team seriously will look weird to you but I'll do my best to somewhat explain it.

[DAS TEAM!]


Machamp (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: No Guard
EVs: 252 HP/204 Atk/52 Spd
Adamant nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Encore
- Dynamicpunch
- Ice Punch
- Stone Edge
---

[SET COMMENTS]
So allow me to explain THIS set. I wanted Encore really badly but I also required something: punish anything, be somewhat bulky, and at least be able to scare things off in the process. The solution? MachAMP! Four arms, silly attack, a movepool that punishes everything, and to add an ability that is top notch. Machamp is fierce for a lead since it scares off the common Gyarados and Tyranitar. Sorry but I don't have much of a better starter so I went with the next best thing. That and I hate Magnezone so much.

Max HP for obvious reasons and the Speed helps me take on at least minimum Speed Tyranitars, which still is useful if you know what I mean.


Bronzong @ Damp Rock
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP/128 Atk/128 SDef
Sassy nature (+SDef, -Spd)
- Rain Dance
- Stealth Rock
- Gyro Ball
- Earthquake
---

[SET COMMENTS]
(Ugh no anime pic).

Okay, so why keep this in the back and not in the front? Two words: Screw. Magnezone. And no I'm not using Shed Shell for an obvious reason: 8 turns of rain is absolutely needed. Anyways I decided to ommit Hypnosis for Earthquake as killing Metagross off is still necessary and Sleep can only promote SleepTalkers to function better (at times). Meh, this guy just counters everything else and Stealth Rock = awesome.


Spiritomb (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 HP/144 Def/112 SDef
Calm nature (+SDef, -SAtk)
- Rest
- Sleep Talk
- Shadow Ball
- Hidden Power [Fighting]
---

[SET COMMENTS]
So Lucario was a huge worry for me and needing a SleepTalker as well as a spin blocker was something I was looking for. This was my solution and not a half-bad one either. Pressure works well with this set allowing for Pokemon with low PP moves to become near useless. EVs are for... I dunno. I'm open to suggestions on that one at least.


Qwilfish (M) @ Life Orb
Ability: Swift Swim
EVs: 4 HP/252 Atk/252 Spd
Adamant nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Waterfall
- Poison Jab
- Explosion
- Swords Dance
---

[SET COMMENTS]
Absorbing Toxic Spikes is the reason why this guy should be loved more on Rain-themed teams. That and this guy is seriously underrated for a sweeper. Even without a Swords Dance Waterfall is doing a ton of damage to many Pokemon. Combine a single Swords Dance and Life Orb and the damage adds quickly. Water and Poison give decent coverage only resisted by a few Pokemon in OU. Then the fun part: all I need to do is press this button, *BOOM!*, and I'm back at HQ drinking cocoa with Meryl and Otacon. Yes I know Otacon isn't listed in the damn meme, but who cares!?!

I won't lie, RaikouLover's team gave me the idea of trying Qwilfish so I'll kindly add this and thank you.


Kingdra (M) @ Life Orb
Ability: Swift Swim
EVs: 120 HP/136 Spd/252 SAtk
Modest nature (+SAtk, -Atk)
- Surf
- Ice Beam
- Hidden Power [Electric]
- Rain Dance
---

[SET COMMENTS]
Ah, the epitone of many Rain Dance teams. I've chosen the special spectrum this time as defense is now crucial with this team as I lack a lot of resistances with some of my Pokemon (at times). With Life Orb much is going down. Surf is the main attack and Ice Beam helps maim Celebi for at least 2HKO. Hidden Power Electric is for everything else (and also prevents Gyarados from approaching too far).


Alakazam (M) @ Life Orb
Ability: Synchronize
EVs: 4 HP/252 Spd/252 SAtk
Timid nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Charge Beam
- Psychic
- Shadow Ball
- Focus Blast
---

[SET COMMENTS]
One word: Endgame. Alakazam hurts a lot of Pokemon quite hard and with the minimal requirement of one Charge Beam his Special Attack skyrockets past 700. Focus Blast easily becomes a 2HKO on Blissey which is further proof of how powerful this thing can be. And thanks to Toxic Spikes and Sandstorm being removed by his teammates his sweep becomes a tad bit easier.

[CONCERNS]
Concerns with the team:
- Despite this being a Suspect Ladder team I have been willing to try this out on the regular ladder. My main concern is could this team even do it? ;_; Not a huge concern obviously.

- Combinations of Vaporeon and Celebi do make this team troubled. With Skarmory and Blissey added to the mix you can only guess how irritated I can get at times.

- Anything else I guess? I'm pretty sure there are more things that could be added but even I don't know. Feel free to add more to it and I'll post it here.

- Alakazam still seem useful even though its somewhat of a Rain Dance team? Even I'm not sure at times despite me thinking 9 times out of 10 that it is.

- Electric attacks are a bit of a fearful thing. To add Magnezone is pure hell for me at times. Yanmega sucks too.

[EPILOGUE]
Overall the team works well as long as everything stays in check (but that excuse could be made for all teams). I am happy to hear suggestions or possible comments and complaints about this team. Thanks for the time to look and rate this! - Colonel M

[Pictures taken from Pokemonelite2000.com]

Spiritomb (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 HP/144 Def/112 SDef
Careful nature (+SDef, -SAtk)
- Rest
- Sleep Talk
- Shadow Ball
- Hidden Power [Fighting]

Click to expand...

I think you mean Calm. The Machamp set is weird, but interesting. Anyway you can't do shit to magnezone Dynamis Punch is normal and it walls the rest of your set. Other than that you have a huge Electric weak. Nice team.

Ah, thanks for picking that out. No wonder why I felt he was a little weak all of a sudden.

(DynamicPunch is still Super Effective versus Magnezone you know, right?) Other than that point taken. I definately will add that to the concern list.

I'm just concerned with all the Azelf leads, Machamp might not be welcome. Otherwise it's a pretty cool team, reminds me a lot of RaikouLover's team tho.

Eh, can't be handled EXTREMELY well but Spiritomb is a good switch-in. And actually it was RaikouLover's team that gave me the idea of Qwilfish (and I will give him credit for it).

hmm..what i dislike is despite bronzong not being a lead, it doesn't necessarily mean magnezone would've been a lead, and if you're not getting that predicted eq, you actually could possibly end up getting like 3 pokes dead to magnezone.

what i'd like to try is mix it up a little bit by trying to add in a ttar in there to do -most- of the damage before you try rain sweeping. sounds kind of contradictory, but it seems like blissey has a fine time sitting around walling kingdra, bronzong and spiritomb, and i doubt you'd want to play a stall war, which wouldn't help when you bring in machamp and be met by their spiritomb as well. i'd like to bring up alakzam as well as having to rely on charge beam (boost+accu) and then focus blast (accu) while you could end up being paralyzed by twave just isn't ideal, especially with the lo damage you take for the paltry 50 base cb gives off in the first place, which makes it seem like you might as well have used calm mind.

however if we're not going down that route, i'd say changing up hpfighting on spiritomb for calm mind, one less poke blissey can do something about.

of course the lucario defense is lacking (sd crunch will always 2hko spiritomb while hpfight doesnt come close to ohko'ing), so you could always do the former frequent rain dance team poke gyarados.

i'm not sure how qwilfish has been doing but i almost want focus sash on there, but only cause i'm skeptic that qwilfish survives an attack whlie swords dancing or something.

Hey man you can be skeptic all you want because after facing everything over and over I've been at a crosspoint.

Tyranitar does seem a bit contradicting but it seems to be something that I can understand. Cresselia and others really love picking my team off and at least Tar would give some better stability with the team. It would definately help take down Magnezone but to accomodate two things: Lucario and Yanmega is giving me a headache. Truthfully they're the only two that have made me become more worried about who to chose. After talking to KD24 I got the suggestion of using Togekiss. The only problem is two things: it adds even more to the Electric weak and yeah... >_>;

I hate it when I get this far only to make serious repairs to teams like this. *Sigh*. Oh well, I guess I'll re-think this one a bit more. Thanks for the input however.

It does suck that you're not leading with a weather changer....

Hariyama can do the same thing as Machamp, although it can't encore, it can Rain Dance. He also scares the hell out of Tyranitar and Abomasnow.

Hariyama could also Fake Out to nullify those pesky Focus Sashes. He's also more bulky then Machamp.

Just a suggestion.