ORAS PU Always Expect the Unexpected

[Conor3197]

Always Expect the Unexpected

Introduction​

Shoutout to all my homies who have stuck by me for this long. This is my 100th post on smogon! NGL but when I started Smogon around this time last year I didnt think it would take me almost a year to post only 100 posts, but I didn't know much about this back then. I am starting to get more into Smogon lately, so it is only appropriate that I post a PU RMT for my 100th post to celebrate.
This team is build around an offensive core including Choice Specs Politoed and Choice Band Golem.

Building Process ​

I began with an offensive core of Choice Specs Politoed and Choice Band Golem. This was a core that I had been wanting to try for a while. These Pokemon usually run defensive sets so I was hoping that I could use the element of surprise to catch people off-guard; making them use a valuable Pokemon of their team, which in turn would help me win.

This core is extremely weak to Grass-type Pokemon, so it was essential that I add a grass check onto my team in my next slot. I decided to use Altaria because it walls Grass-type Pokemon, and it can act as a status absorber which is helpful for my team.

I now needed a Stealth Rock setter and hazard removal. I favored a defensive Stealth Rock setter which was not weak to Grass-types. I decided to use Armaldo as a 2 in 1, so I could free up more room on my team for offensive Pokemon.

My team was now looking very slow. I decided to add Rapidash onto the squad for some quicker offense, and to dish out burns which will help my other Pokemon switch in on physically offensive threats.

I finally needed a Pokemon which could outspeed naturally fast Pokemon in the tier that are faster than Rapidash. I decided to use Choice Scarf Grumpig to stick with the idea of surprising my opponent. Grumpig also helps against defensive walls, as it can trick them giving them an unexpected Choice Scarf. By adding Grumpig I now had a Pokemon which could successfully switch in on specially offensive Water-type Pokemon, using an Ice-type move, and sucessfully 2HKO them.

Team Analysis​

Grimsley (Politoed) (F) @ Choice Specs
Ability: Water Absorb
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 1 Atk / 30 SpA
- Hydro Pump
- Ice Beam
- Scald
- Hidden Power [Electric]

Politoed switches in against defensive Water-type Pokemon which often switch into Golem and uses them to recover HP, and then hits a switching in Pokemon really hard. Grass-types often switch in against Politoed expecting it to use a Water-type move, or to live an Ice-beam. 252 Special Attack EVs and a Modest nature partnered with the Choice Specs, allow Politoed to pick up the OHKO on most defensive Grass-types, which catches many opponents off guard.

Handsome Devil (Golem) (M) @ Choice Band
Ability: Sturdy
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge
- Sucker Punch
- Superpower

Golem switches into the Electric-type Pokemon which switch in against Politoed. It then uses this opportunity to dish out a lot of damage on a switching in Pokemon or to OHKO the opponents Electric-type Pokemon. People will generally preserve their Electric-type Pokemon for pivoting around and for beating Politoed. It is crucial to maintain Golem's Sturdy at all costs for it to be effective, meaning that you cannot switch in on Stealth Rock, unless you are certain that it can KO another Pokemon. You must be careful, when switching Golem in against Electric-type Pokemon in case they go for Hidden-power-Ice.

Beats (Altaria) @ Leftovers
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpA / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Draco Meteor
- Roost
- Flamethrower
- Toxic

Altaria should almost always be switching in against Grass-type Pokemon. If you are predicting the opposing Pokemon to stay in then you should definitely use Flamethrower, but this rarely ever happens. You will mostly be going for a toxic to put a switching in Pokemon on a timer, or a Draco Meteor to deal as of chip damage as possible. Afterwards you should switch Altaria out, into a better Pokemon that will be dealing more damage to the opponent, or try and stall turns, by using the combination of Flamethrower and Roost, so that the foe dies to toxic.

Clutch (Armaldo) @ Leftovers
Ability: Battle Armor
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Def
Impish Nature
- Rapid Spin
- Earthquake
- Stealth Rock
- X-Scissor

Armaldo enjoys switching in on Poison-type Pokemon that switch into Altaria to absorb the toxic. It uses this opportunity to set up its Rocks and also remove the opponents Rocks. It is running Earthquake so that it is not set-up fodder to Muk and Arbok. It is very important that Armaldo does not allow these Pokemon to set-up too much, otherwise it cannot touch them and they will be able to beat him.

Bewildered (Rapidash) @ Charcoal
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Flare Blitz
- Morning Sun
- Wild Charge
- Will-O-Wisp

Rapidash is used as a revenge killer. After Knocking out opposing Pokemon, a Water-type Pokemon will usually come in to attempt to Knock out Rapidash or get a free Scald burn. This gives Politoed a perfect opportunity to switch-in, and also means that Rapidash can be preserved to revenge kill more Pokemon. Rapidash can also stay in on Pokemon which switch into it and use Will-O-Wisp, which cuts their attack in half, helping its teammates.

Pepe Pig (Grumpig) (F) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Thick Fat
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Psyshock
- Focus Blast
- Shadow Ball
- Trick

Grumpig is also used as a revenge killer on this team. It switches in against Water-,Rock-, and Ground-types which Rapidash cannot revenge kill. Grumpig switching in often confuses people, and as a result they end up staying in and losing their Pokemon. This method works best against faster threats like Floatzel, because it give Politoed and Golem a better chance to sweep. Walls usually switch in on Grumpig, which presents Grumpig with a perfect opportunity to Trick away it's Choice Scarf.

Threats

​

Calm Mind Clefairy poses an issue for my team after it sets up, especially if Grumpig has given away or lost its Choice Scarf. It may use Altaria as set-up fodder, and it can paralyze my Pokemon with Thunder wave which this team really does not appreciate.

Mixed Floatzel with Life-Orb is a big problem for this team because I have no guaranteed switch-in against it. This team relies on me making the right prediction, in order for Floatzel to not be a threat. A wrong play often results in a Pokemon fainting.

Replay
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/pu-537417431

Conclusion ​

Thanks so much to everyone who has been here for me! There list goes on for quite a while, so I am not going to tag everyone. Thanks also to all the new people I have only recently become friendly with. Thanks everyone!

Importable

Grimsley (Politoed) (F) @ Choice Specs
Ability: Water Absorb
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 1 Atk / 30 SpA
- Hydro Pump
- Ice Beam
- Scald
- Hidden Power [Electric]

Handsome Devil (Golem) (M) @ Choice Band
Ability: Sturdy
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge
- Sucker Punch
- Superpower

Beats (Altaria) @ Leftovers
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpA / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Draco Meteor
- Roost
- Flamethrower
- Toxic

Clutch (Armaldo) @ Leftovers
Ability: Battle Armor
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Atk / 252 Def
Impish Nature
- Rapid Spin
- Earthquake
- Stealth Rock
- X-Scissor

Bewildered (Rapidash) @ Charcoal
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Flare Blitz
- Morning Sun
- Wild Charge
- Will-O-Wisp

Pepe Pig (Grumpig) (F) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Thick Fat
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Psychic
- Focus Blast
- Shadow Ball
- Trick

 

[HJAD]

Hey man,

Cool team :3 I'm always a fan of teams that utilise high power wallbreakers such as this one. In my personal opinion, its one of the best ways to force a wincondition and your team looks really well organised to take advantage of it. Hopefully with this rate i can help you make a couple of changes that can change this for the better.
I couldnt help but realise the lack of dark type resist, its quite standard of the PU meta as of late, but in my personal opinion, having SD Eviolite Monferno > Rapidash helps with this issue for 2 reasons. First of all it gives you another way of cleaning the match, rather than relying on scarf grumpigs speed tier to clean up the match late game, meaning you can keep much higher pressure on the opponent as well as giving you a settup sweeper to pressure the likes of clefable rather than giving it more free switches. It also gives you the best pawniard check in the tier, your team kinda folded to pawn should it have gotten a free swords dance, you never want to risk the 5050s it can threaten.
Also just going to suggest Fire Punch > Supepower on Golem. It gives you a vastly improved matchup vs Bronzor balance in general, rather than just giveing it a free switch, Golem needs to break as much of the tier as possible if your team is going to be effective.

Good luck in the future n_n
~HJAD

 

[MZ]

Aight I'm gonna be honest I really don't think going to Monferno is terribly beneficial, while the team needs a cleaner it also desperately needs any speed control it can get. I honestly had a hard time thinking of a way to fix this team because of just the ridiculously severe issues it was present, but what I was looking at is just completely removing Armaldo entirely because of the amount of redundancies it creates and instead going offensive rocks golem and dropping altaria for vullaby. You can preserve the breaker in specs toed and vulla covers most of the same threats that alt does while special fires are checked by toed and rap and pig so I don't think it's a huge loss here, and being able to switch into psychic types is pretty nice.

As for what goes over Armaldo, the team is still pressured super hard by rotom-f and defensive boosters and Monferno isn't ideal either. Misdreavus is the best way to sort of blanket all those checks from what I found, I'll leave the stallbreaker set below but it basically just comes in to annoy things once or twice long enough for you to try to break things down with specs toed. Finally, I can't give a great cleaner (and Monferno would definitely be nice for that ik) but with these changes I think you can afford to run Mr. Mime over Grumpig. Fastest mon being scarf mime isn't ideal, but I cant think of any way to work around this. It's already changing a lot of stuff so hopefully you dont find it too much, but even now I really want to just replace most of the team with stuff not even remotely similar and stick with the toed+rap core. For what it's worth I tested the team in a couple of games and it didn't suck, but ur still very heavily reliant on toed to start racking up some damage to break down anything. I still hope this helps somewhat, sorry I have to be so negative about ur hundred post celebration bc grats on that.

new import

Politoed (F) @ Choice Specs
Ability: Water Absorb
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 1 Atk / 30 SpA
- Hydro Pump
- Ice Beam
- Scald
- Hidden Power [Electric]

Golem (M) @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Sturdy
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge
- Sucker Punch
- Stealth Rock

Vullaby @ Eviolite
Ability: Overcoat
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD
Impish Nature
- U-turn
- Roost
- Defog
- Foul Play

Rapidash @ Charcoal
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Flare Blitz
- Morning Sun
- Wild Charge
- Will-O-Wisp

Mr. Mime @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Filter
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Psyshock
- Dazzling Gleam
- Focus Blast
- Trick

Misdreavus @ Eviolite
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 248 HP / 36 Def / 224 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Will-O-Wisp
- Taunt
- Shadow Ball
- Pain Split

missy set beats +speed monkey and gets in some phys def, p basic. can run hex but that doesnt 2hko monkey