INTRO
Hello smogon. As a typical rain user, watching many people complain about drizzle beeing OP, always made my blood boil. So during the tornadus-t/keldeo I decided to make revamp from one of the usual sand teams just to show the drizzle haters how wrong they were. Although this team should be a momentary team, while I was playing with it I discovered that it was the most joyfull team I've ever used.
THE MAKING OFF
First the main idea of the team was to use stoutland and spam ultrafast choicebanded returns, so the 2 initial pokes would be stoutland and Hippo cause unlike ttar hippo can take fighting attacks
then for proper use of a banded stoutland I would need a steel trapper: time for subs magnezone to enter
after testing LO scizor in another team and seeing it's potential i decided to give it a shot, specially to have another drag resist and something that can setup on locked latis that might be dangerous
Now i had 2 pokes to check sun and rain teams, and as a real fan of latios and for the fact that both rain and sun hate this dragon it had to be on the team
I knew that latios wouldn't survive more than 1 specs hydro pump and would be an easy prey to the big bird so I decided to pick one of the 2nd gen most famous pokes: resttalk suicune
suicune worked wonders against many teams but some pokes like toxicroak and jellicent would still give me many problems. Venosaur also could set up on it, and the big bird could get lucky on huricane and confuse hax me to death. So what could be better aggainst rain than a dragon that comes at 2+ spe, can dent anything for great damage and gets a 4resist against water attacks? kingdra was the choice.
first i tried an LO resttalk with draco and hydro pump, but I was forced to use rest too often due to life orb + ss. As most of the times I would just spam dracos i tried dragon fang, which turned out to be a great lure for annoying things like rotom-w and set up sweepers thinking it was choice locked.
then for proper use of a banded stoutland I would need a steel trapper: time for subs magnezone to enter
after testing LO scizor in another team and seeing it's potential i decided to give it a shot, specially to have another drag resist and something that can setup on locked latis that might be dangerous
Now i had 2 pokes to check sun and rain teams, and as a real fan of latios and for the fact that both rain and sun hate this dragon it had to be on the team
I knew that latios wouldn't survive more than 1 specs hydro pump and would be an easy prey to the big bird so I decided to pick one of the 2nd gen most famous pokes: resttalk suicune
suicune worked wonders against many teams but some pokes like toxicroak and jellicent would still give me many problems. Venosaur also could set up on it, and the big bird could get lucky on huricane and confuse hax me to death. So what could be better aggainst rain than a dragon that comes at 2+ spe, can dent anything for great damage and gets a 4resist against water attacks? kingdra was the choice.
first i tried an LO resttalk with draco and hydro pump, but I was forced to use rest too often due to life orb + ss. As most of the times I would just spam dracos i tried dragon fang, which turned out to be a great lure for annoying things like rotom-w and set up sweepers thinking it was choice locked.
INSIDE THE TEAM
Trait: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 HP / 200 Def / 56 SDef
Impish Nature
- Earthquake
- Stealth Rock
- Whirlwind
- Slack Off
I can't think any words to describe hippo other than wall. There is no much thinking when trying to chose a partner for stoutland, they are like bread and butter. Hippo's main job is to put rocks, summon sand for his little fella, and finally hold back physical attackers trying to break my team (specially fighting types like a 2+ nukario and terakion that can threat my team). The best part of this fat guy is that he has a reliable recovery, so even during weather wars it can be used to freely, as it won't be worn down by entry hazards or weak attacks.
Trait: Sand Rush
EVs: 80 HP / 252 Atk / 176 Spd
Jolly Nature
- Return
- Superpower
- Ice Fang
- Pursuit
Stoutland is my main attacker and it does carry quite a punch. A banded return can be used to late game sweep or hurt the entire team enough so scizor can finish them off. Pusuit is specially good to trap the orbed version of the lati twins that can give this team a lot of trouble. Pusuit is also used a lot for gengar that is incredibly annoying no matter what. Ice fang is mostly used if a dragon is paired with gengar as one of them will surely be killed by the furry bastard, as it can KO most of the dragons and also hit gengar(which is the most common switch in as they probaly expect return) for the 2HKO. Ice coverage is also perfect if they think that landy-t can wall this dawg. Finally Superpower for obvious coverage against steel types. Finally the evs are used to be faster than scarftios which is the fastest threatening scarf.
Trait: Magnet Pull
EVs: 252 HP / 200 SAtk / 56 Spd
Modest Nature
- Thunderbolt
- Flash Cannon
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Substitute
Magnezone is used for one simple reason: trap ferro,skarmory and forry, opening space for a furry ball sweep. Normally it's not a hard job for him as kingdra/latios/stoutland are magnets for those steels, and any wrong move on their part will cause death to a poke.
It also makes scizor almost never pursuit latios as it fears beeing traped back. mag also has other utilities as dragon resist, kuy-b check and threat the ocasional jellicent. After doing it's job it's normally used as a death fodder so stoutland or scizor can enter without any damage. The evs of this set is to be faster than 8spd evs band scizor, so i can kill it even if took out something with superpower.
Trait: Technician
EVs: 80 HP / 252 Atk / 176 Spd
Adamant Nature
- Bullet Punch
- Bug Bite
- Swords Dance
- Roost
Scizor has a good reason to the most used poke, at 2+ it's priority will KO anything not called tentacruel, full health keldeo and heatran. It's quite easy to get a boost as many people are expecting the choice locked version or think that stuff like gliscor/forry can wall it. scizor also works as revenge killer that is not choice locked. scizor is almost always the late game cleaner, finishing weaked foes even if they resist bulet punch. While some people may think that superpower is better than roost, I hardly had a battle in which I would win if i had this move meanwhile roost is quite usefull if i'm using this monster as a revenge killer or dragon resist. evs to outspeed 4spe rotom-w and the remnant in attack and HP
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Surf
- Recover
- Trick
Latios is the first of my anti sun/rain duo and also my favorite poke. Draco meteor will hurt anything for huge damage and latios also takes huge advantage for magnezone trapping any steel not called heatran. Latios is also a good for it's groung immunity and fighting resist and can check most of the sun and rain teams. Trick will choice lock any poke that is too bulky to be handled and can be specially annoying to stall teams. Recover might seem gimmick but can be quite usefull if the battle takes too long as normally they expect that latios will be worn down by stealth rock + flamethrower/scald. LO latias might also work but trick is so dam usefull, especially against some ttar that after the trick they lock itself in pursuit letting scizor set up freely after latios has died and then sweeping the entire enemy team.
Trait: Swift Swim
EVs: 120 HP / 252 SAtk / 136 Spd
Modest Nature
- Hydro Pump
- Draco Meteor
- Sleep Talk
- Rest
Finally my second rain/sun check. kingdra is also my status absorber, specially against ninetales/heatran trying to burn everything. hydro pump hurt even is in sun and earth power from heatran won't do much damage (~30%) so kingdra can check that annoying, unkillable heatran without taking much damage. kingdra also an incredible lead as many people don't know what it can do. with these evs it can outspeed and ko loom before it spores. this set is just awesome as most of the time you hydro pump first , making people think that this set is a choiced one then put their bulky rotom-w to be vaporised by draco. also they will probably try to set up with frail sweepers while you're sleeping and they will be hit with sleep talk. Although beeing quite good aggainst sun teams, it's in rain where it really shines. Against rain they have to chose to be sweeped by kingdra or stoutland, and there is very little that they can do about it, because the only thing that can check this dragon is ferro which can be trapped and killed by magnezone.
OVERVIEW
Overall imo this team works quite well because this team can check most of the major threats and even though the team has good sinergy (specially with all team members enjoying those nasty steel types beeing traped by mag), this team (unlike most stall team) can afford to lose one or more member without major consequences and most of the pokes used has some form of recovery so it's hard to worn down the team by residual damage.
THREAT LIST
#1 BRELOOM: this annoying mushroom can dent my entire team for great damage. if well used can be very very ward to take down. the usual strategy is to put kingdra to sleep and then use sleep talk hoping for draco or hydro pump, even hydro pump can dent it and then normally life orb + ss wil make it eventually die.
#2 DEOXYS-D: this thing will put rocks and a spikes layer and there is nothing I can do about it. Most of the time i just pray that it doesn't carry hp fire and try kill it with scizor.
#3 exbelt JIRACHI: this annoying prick can kill scizor and magnezone, get a burn on hippo and u-turn without almost any damage. the best strategy agaisnt it normally is lure it with latios and give him a specs so it can't u-tun my hippo so easily.
#4 special LANDORUS: i have no switch for this. the best strategy is to keep ofensive pressure so it doesn't come in for free. if it kills something stoutland can retaliate him or if it took some damage it normaly is scizor's job to finish him.
#5 LO LATIAS with dragon pulse: this set cannot be lured to shot dracos and then be trapped by stoutland after it's weak. the best play is normaly sacrifice something so stoutland can come in and trap it with pursuit or ko it with ice fang denpending on the situation.
#2 DEOXYS-D: this thing will put rocks and a spikes layer and there is nothing I can do about it. Most of the time i just pray that it doesn't carry hp fire and try kill it with scizor.
#3 exbelt JIRACHI: this annoying prick can kill scizor and magnezone, get a burn on hippo and u-turn without almost any damage. the best strategy agaisnt it normally is lure it with latios and give him a specs so it can't u-tun my hippo so easily.
#4 special LANDORUS: i have no switch for this. the best strategy is to keep ofensive pressure so it doesn't come in for free. if it kills something stoutland can retaliate him or if it took some damage it normaly is scizor's job to finish him.
#5 LO LATIAS with dragon pulse: this set cannot be lured to shot dracos and then be trapped by stoutland after it's weak. the best play is normaly sacrifice something so stoutland can come in and trap it with pursuit or ko it with ice fang denpending on the situation.
I'm very open minded to sugestions to make this team even better. I know my english is not the best neither is my team, but I hope you enjoyed the show.
