Clefable [4N] - Encore + Trick

I've been testing this set in OU for months and found out that it's maybe Clefable's best chance at this tier, beating many of the tier's threats and many of Clefable's common switch-ins in uncommon ways, much like the way Pory2 is used in OU (but Clefable is usually much more useful and much less of a dead waight against stall teams than Pory2). I will very much apreciate syntax and spelling corrections, as english is not my mother language.


[SET]
name: Encore+Trick
move 1: Encore
move 2: Trick
move 3: Seismic Toss
move 4: Softboiled
item: Flame Orb
ability: Magic Guard
nature: Calm
evs: 252 HP / 252 SpD / 4 Spe

[SET COMMENTS]

<p>This set, while being just the Trick Orb Set with Encore in one of the slots, is perfectly designed for OU and works somewhat differently than the Encore or Trick Orb sets. You'll usually switch in Clefable against a special attacker, using Clefable's decent HP and SpD, and shrug off damage with Softboiled. Your opponent will then try to switch to a physical threat to scare off Clefable, just to be crippled with a Flame Orb. As Clefable can survive even Close Combats from a burned opponent, you can Trick again on the next turn, taking back your Flame Orb to cripple another member of the opponent's team later on.</p>

<p>If your opponent decides to stay with it's special attacker while getting tricked with the Flame Orb, you can get your Orb back with another Trick or beat the opponent 1-on-1 with a combination of Seismic Toss and Softboiled. You can always use Encore if the opponent has a recovery move or a 101 Substitute.
</p>

<p>With the given EVs, Clefable can beat all sorts of special attackers 1-on-1 bar strong Specs users. It's a fine switch-in into things like Rotom-A, Blissey, defensive Zapdos and Celebi thanks to it's Special Defense, while Magic Guard and the burn status protecting it against other status. Even a Life Orb Zapdos' Thunderbolt fails to 2HKO. Heatran's unboosted Fire Blast also fails to 2HKO, so you can freely Softboiled on it's face. This Clefable is also one of the few true counters to SubToxic sets from the likes of Heatran and Zapdos. Calm Minders like Latias and Jirachi are generally stopped due to Encore. Against stall teams, Clefable can outstall things thanks to its ability and Softboiled, and can even beat Blissey if you manage to Trick the Flame Orb on it.</p>

<p>Good partners for this set are pokémon that resist fighting and can set-up on encored foes. Latias, Salamence and Gyarados are good choices. Tyranitar is also a good parnter as it can come in on Rotom-A and Pursuit it, as all Clefable can do to Ghost-types is Trick the Flame Orb and/or Encore them. Tyranitar can also come in on some of the few special attacks that Clefable must avoid, like Heatran's Choice Specs Fire Blast, Zapdos' Life Orb Thunderbolt and Jirachi's +1 Psychic. The latter two can be encored before Clefable switchs out.</p>

<p>The EVs are pretty obvious as this set is designed to wall special attacks in OU. Moving 8 EVs from SpD to Spe is also an option to beat min Speed Tyranitar. Toxic Orb is not an option on this set as you will want the attack drop that the burn provides to beat physical threats.</p>

can you post logs? i just honestly can't imagine this set working as well as you say.

infernape, heracross and machamp (with guts) all eat this set alive with no problems. mixmance can still deal enough damage (between draco meteor and brick break) after burn to kill you. with breloom, weavile and scizor you have to trick on their switch, otherwise they will outright kill you. so physical lucario is the only i can imagine that it can actually deal with.

[SET]
name: Encore+Trick
move 1: Encore
move 2: Trick
move 3: Seismic Toss
move 4: Softboiled
item: Flame Orb
ability: Magic Guard
nature: Calm
evs: 252 HP / 252 SpD / 4 Spe

[SET COMMENTS]

<p>This set, while being just the Trick Orb Set with Encore in one of the slots, is perfectly (something like that, 'totally' isn't a good idea in my opinion) designed for OU and works somewhat differently than the Encore or Trick Orb sets. You'll usually switch in Clefable against a special attacker, using Clefable's decent HP and SpD, and shrug (no 'ing') off damage with Softboiled. Your opponent will then try to switch to a physical threat to scare off Clefable, just to be crippled with a Flame Orb. As Clefable can survive even Close Combats from a burned opponent, you can (deleted 'even') Trick again on the next turn, taking back your Flame Orb to cripple another member of the opponent's team later on ('on the battle' is just wrong).</p>

<p>If your opponent decides to stay with it's special attacker while getting tricked with the Flame Orb, you can get your Orb back with another Trick or beat the opponent 1-on-1 with a combination of Seismic Toss and Softboiled. (the paragraph was oe big sentence) You can always use Encore if the opponent has a recovery move or a 101 Substitute.</p>

<p>With the given EVs, Clefable can beat all sorts of special attackers 1-on-1 bar strong Specs users. It's a fine switch-in into things like Rotom-A, Blissey, defensive Zapdos and Celebi thanks to its Special Defense, while Magic Guard and the burn status protecting it against other status. Even a Life Orb Zapdos' Thunderbolt fails to 2HKO. Heatran's unboosted Fire Blast also fails to 2HKO, so you can freely Softboiled on it's face (the last part was a bit unnecessary) . This Clefable is also one of the few true counters to SubToxic sets from the likes of Heatran and Zapdos. Calm Minders like Latias and Jirachi are generally stopped due to Encore. Against stall teams, Clefable can outstall things thanks to its ability and Softboiled, and can even beat Blissey if you manage to Trick the Flame Orb on it.</p>

<p>Good partners for this set are pokémon that resist fighting and can set-up on encored foes. Latias and Salamence are good choices. Tyranitar is also a good parnter as it can come in on Rotom-A and Pursuit it, as all Clefable can do to Ghost-types is Trick the Flame Orb and/or Encore them. Tyranitar can also come in on some of the few special attacks that Clefable must avoid, like Heatran's Choice Specs Fire Blast, Zapdos' Life Orb Thunderbolt and Jirachi's +1 Psychic. The latter two can be encored before Clefable switchs out.</p>

<p>The EVs are pretty obvious as this set is designed to wall special attacks in OU. Moving 8 EVs from SpD to Spe is also an option to beat min Speed Tyranitar. Toxic Orb is not an option on this set as you will want the attack drop that the burn provides to beat physical threats.</p>

Click to expand...

Hmm, english isn't my first language either, but I found & changed some typos and fixed them, for all I know.

I strongly advise adding bulky / resTalk / ResTalk + DD Gyarados to the team options, as it counters Lucario and Infernape, the two most common and likely threats to this set (Infernape can also absorb the Flame Orb, so a teammate that can stop it is a blessing).

ive used a clefable much like this one, run 52 speed evs so it outruns all choice band scizor including those people who put 8 evs into speed instead of into defense, and you can trick flame orb onto it before it gets a chance to superpower you

^ I might be mistaken, but I recall flame orb activating at the end of the turn. So won't scizor kill you and then get burned?

OP, the set seems to fill in some niche roles, but it would be good with some damage calculations. For example, can you outstall burned CB tyranitar? SD lucario? And do you have any logs?

ferron said:

can you post logs? i just honestly can't imagine this set working as well as you say.

Blah blah blah counters as there are to almost every set of any pokemon

Click to expand...

It really does work well. The crux of the set [Trick with Flame Orb + Encore] is free switch ins for your team more often than not and makes things like Scizor Gyarados and Tyranitar much easier to deal with. Wish +Protect/Toxic are also options although the set plays differently then. I've also gone with Bold 252 Def spreads and ran Counter although that is a lesser option.

Basically play with Clefable's massive versatility for what you team needs. (Knock off, Steath Rock Thunder Wave, Ice Beam/Flamethower/Thunderbolt for 4x weak targets, Reflect, Light Screen, Safeguard, Gravity, weather...etc)

Mrobinson587 said:

It really does work well. The crux of the set [Trick with Flame Orb + Encore] is free switch ins for your team more often than not and makes things like Scizor Gyarados and Tyranitar much easier to deal with. Wish +Protect/Toxic are also options although the set plays differently then. I've also gone with Bold 252 Def spreads and ran Counter although that is a lesser option.

Basically play with Clefable's massive versatility for what you team needs. (Knock off, Steath Rock Thunder Wave, Ice Beam/Flamethower/Thunderbolt for 4x weak targets, Reflect, Light Screen, Safeguard, Gravity, weather...etc)

Click to expand...

so what you are saying is the reason this set works, is that you should be doing things outside of this set? great idea!

none of what you said defends this set, and the fact that this set is countered by the very physical threats that it is supposed to stop makes this set look rather useless. until some actual proof (in the form of logs or how it can deal with the listed threats) then i'll be a nay-sayer.

oh, and phantom, you're right. so unless you have some form of miraculous prediction skill and can trick on the switch, the clef dies.

The set is not supposed to switch into physical threats and stop them. It's a special wall that can cripple one of the opponent's physical sweepers. The reason the set must run Encore is because it needs it to beat Calm Minders, but the team support offered by Encore also helps Clefable to differentiate itself from other special walls in OU.

About fighting against threats like Lucario and Tyranitar, there is one thing that maybe I didn't covered well in the analysis: after you trick them on the switch, you will have a Life Orb or a Choice Band, so the way to play is to switch out (it's not hard to switch in an unboosted move from a burned pokémon, you won't need extremely bulky walls to do it) and then come back later to trick the Choice/LifeOrb into something else, messing with the itens of the whole team.

And there are no "miracle skills" involved into using this set. Clefable is very bulky on the special side and can't be killed with status. The opponent will need to bring a physical attacker to try to do some serious damage on Clefable. If he doesn't, you just burned forever their special attacker or wall or whatever is sitting in front of Clefable failing to do damage. You may cripple more or cripple less, but you will always cripple something with this set.

Did you take my advice and added Gyarados as a good partner? I talked all about it in my first post in this thread.

ferron said:

so what you are saying is the reason this set works, is that you should be doing things outside of this set? great idea!

none of what you said defends this set, and the fact that this set is countered by the very physical threats that it is supposed to stop makes this set look rather useless. until some actual proof (in the form of logs or how it can deal with the listed threats) then i'll be a nay-sayer.

oh, and phantom, you're right. so unless you have some form of miraculous prediction skill and can trick on the switch, the clef dies.

Click to expand...

No. Tricking a flame orb and having encore is what works. That is like i said before the crux of this set.The one proposed here can take on most Special attackers and calm minders. Encore screws over sleep talkers and calm minders like Jirachi and Suicune and can almost single handedly put a stop to most stall.

I merely listed other options that I have ran depending on what problems a team of mine has had. For example, While seismic toss may be the most consistent form of damage, I may have a team weak to taunt or bulky rest talk Gyarados so I may opt to run thunderbolt. Even with just thunderbolt, Trick and Encore still work.

Sebastian said:

You may cripple more or cripple less, but you will always cripple something with this set.

Click to expand...

Corrections and writing style edits made. Also added Gyarados to the team options.

Sebastian said:

I've been testing this set in OU for months and found out that it's maybe Clefable's best chance at this tier, beating many of the tier's threats and many of Clefable's common switch-ins in uncommon ways, much like the way Pory2 is used in OU (but Clefable is usually much more useful and much less of a dead waight against stall teams than Pory2). I will very much apreciate syntax and spelling corrections, as english is not my mother language.


[SET]
name: Encore+Trick
move 1: Encore
move 2: Trick
move 3: Seismic Toss
move 4: Softboiled
item: Flame Orb
ability: Magic Guard
nature: Calm
evs: 252 HP / 252 SpD / 4 Spe

[SET COMMENTS]

<p>This set, while essentially being the Trick Orb variant with Encore, is perfectly designed for OU, (added comma) and works somewhat differently than the seperate Encore and Trick Orb sets. You'll usually want to switch in Clefable against a special attacker, using Clefable's decent HP and SpD to your advantage; then, recover off any damage you might have taken with Softboiled. Your opponent will then try to switch to a physical threat to scare off Clefable, just to find themselves crippled, courtesy of Flame Orb. As Clefable can survive even Close Combats from a burned opponent, you can Trick again on the next turn, taking back your Flame Orb to cripple another member of the opponent's team later on.</p>

<p>If your opponent decides to keep in their special attacker and get Tricked, you can get your Orb back with another Trick, (added comma) or beat the opponent 1-on-1 with a combination of Seismic Toss and Softboiled. You can always use Encore if the opponent has a recovery move or a 101 Substitute.
</p>

<p>With the given EVs, Clefable can beat all sorts of special attackers 1-on-1 barring some strong Choice Specs users. It's a fine switch ("in" deleted) into things like Rotom-A, Blissey, defensive Zapdos and Celebi thanks to it's impressive (idk, it made it sound better xD) Special Defense, while Magic Guard and the burn status are protecting it against being hit with a Thunder Wave or a sleeping move. Even a Life Orb Zapdos' Thunderbolt fails to 2HKO; Heatran's unboosted Fire Blast also is unable to 2HKO, so you can use Softboiled to recover off any damage taken. This Clefable is also one of the few true counters to SubToxic sets from the likes of Heatran and Zapdos. Calm Minders like Latias and Jirachi are generally stopped due to Encore. Against stall teams, Clefable can outstall things thanks to its ability and Softboiled, and can even beat Blissey if you manage to Trick the Flame Orb onto it.</p>

<p>Good partners for this set are pokémon that resist fighting and can set-up on Encored foes. Latias, Salamence and Gyarados are good choices. Tyranitar is also a good parnter as it can come in on Rotom-A and Pursuit it, seeing as all Clefable can do to Ghost-types is Trick the Flame Orb and/or Encore them. Tyranitar can also come in on some of the few special attacks that Clefable must avoid, like Heatran's Choice Specs Fire Blast, Zapdos' Life Orb Thunderbolt and Jirachi's +1 Psychic. The latter two can be encored before Clefable switchs out.</p>

<p>The EVs are pretty obvious, (added comma) as this set is designed to wall special attacks in OU. Moving 8 EVs from SpD to Spe is also an option to beat min Speed Tyranitar. (last sentence removed, it seemed sort of redundant)</p>

Click to expand...

If you use the above suggestions, "seperate" should be separate.

Yeah, this seems better for UU too. Closing for now. Perhaps if tabs are added I might re-look into OU Clefable and see if a set such as this is viable.