Because it’s actually a good sweeper
Life Orb Celebi is quite an interesting pokemon. For starters its fantastic base stats of 100 across the board make it quick and relatively bulky. On top of this it also makes a nice check to the infinitely useful pokemon class affectionately known as bulky waters. Alongside these things, Celebi makes an impressive Life Orb sweeper. With these positive traits it’s only natural that I have acquired a fanatical obsession with Celebi (which also has a humorous onion-like appearance).
Now let’s look at the pokemon that can stop a Lucario sweep:
Gliscor
Salamence
Gyarados
Rotom-A
Choice Scarf Heatran
Zapdos
Gengar
Just to name a few.
And Celebi’s checks:
Choice Scarf Heatran
Salamence
Zapdos
Gengar
Scizor
Tyranitar
Weavile
Skarmory
Just to name a few
When we look at this we notice that both share some counters. I have bolded the coinciding ones for those in a rush. I have also italicized the threats that are handled by the other pokemon (e.g. Lucario handles Tyranitar, Celebi handles Gyarados). So for the next pokemon I looked for was something that could handle these shared threats as well as others that threatened individual pokemon.
The next addition to the team was Tyranitar. He made an excellent partner to Lucario especially due to his ability to counter pokemon that give Lucario a hard time. These include such pokemon such as Gengar and Rotom-A. Tyranitar was also an excellent choice those bolded pokemon in the above list that threatened Celebi + Lucario. Among these troublesome pokemon were Zapdos, Heatran and Gengar. Tyranitar also helped with another difficulty that this team had at this point, which was Rotom-A and Zapdos. In addition to the positive aspects of having a pokemon such as Tyranitar in the team the negative aspects, (his plethora of weaknesses) is aided by the abundance of fighting resists already as well as a ground immunity and a water and grass resistance in Celebi. Choice Scarf Tyranitar seems to be the best set as with a Scarf Tyranitar can check Gengar and Starmie better and as Latias has been relocated back to Ubers less Tyranitar would now be Scarfed, giving me surprise value, expecially in the coming months when his popularity will drop if I predict correctly.
The next part of the development of this team was that both Celebi and Lucario, while not really sharing counters, do share potential partners. Both pokemon work well when paired with Gyarados. With the dangerous Dragon Dancer supporting Celebi and Lucario, the favour is returned, mostly in typing, with Celebi resisting the electric attacks plaguing Gyarados, and Lucario taking pathetic x0.25 damage from Rock attacks, the other weakness that prevents a Gyarados sweep. Gyarados seemed to help with checking the remaining pokemon on the list with the exception of Salamence (which might be moving to Ubers soon) and Skarmory.
The next choice I made was to include Scizor into the team. It didn’t seem to work that well but it did provide me with a check to Salamence and Mamoswine. Scizor fitted in well with Celebi by defeating his checks that commonly carried Pursuit which were Tyranitar and Weavile.
With all its checks out of the way I chose a mixed Jirachi set with Stealth Rock that feigned Choice Scarf to lead and mid to late game it could function as a clever wall breaker with the notorious Iron Head flinch rate which made a mess of sure fire counters, and with Gyarados, Salamence and Heatran all solidly handled by the other members of this team. On top of this, Jirachi beats Tyranitar and it serves as a nice anti lead.
So I had my team of Jirachi/Scizor/Tyranitar/Gyarados/Lucario/Celebi, but it just didn’t really work having a rather annoying Gyarados weakness as well as the reality that I didn’t handle Scizor that well. So I opted to run a Rotom forme which would remedy both of these problems. I ran Rotom instead of Scizor as I thought that a better way to dispatch Tyranitar was to lure and then burn it.
So this brings us to the current version of the team (Note also that I used a Suicune in the place of Gyarados for a short time). So in conclusion I’ll apologize for the huge wall of text thus far and also apologize for the amount which you are about to read.
Now some actually useful information:
~ 1 weak to Stealth Rock
~ 1 weak to Toxic Spikes (if you don’t count Natural Cure Celebi)
~ At least 2 resistances to every type
~ Doesn’t use Scizor. In the current state of the OU metagame to not use a Scizor is a significant achievement.
The current version of the team:
In Depth:
@ Expert Belt
Trait: Serene Grace
EV: 252 Atk/4 SAtk/252 Spd
Hasty nature (+Spd, -Def)
Iron Head
Fire Punch
Grass Knot/Ice Punch
Stealth Rock
This is quite an unusual lead which I have enjoyed using, and to my great delight I have obtained an impressively IVed, Hasty Jirachi from the Jirachi event in Australia, which has inspired me to possibly create this team for Wi-Fi, (but back on topic) this lead provides two great elements of surprise which, if utilized correctly, gives me the ideal start to any match and hopefully the opponent’s situation doesn’t get any better than that.
The first of these surprises that my opponent will experience is the coverage of this particular Jirachi set. I can hit most leads quite hard (usually on the first turn because I get a bit excited when I can hit something for a lot of damage). Leads such as Hippowdon, Swampert, Aerodactyl, Tyranitar, Bronzong, Metagross and other Jirachi are hit for super-effective damage from my moves of choice. The second of these surprises occurs after the initial move from Jirachi. The opponent will rely on their resistances to switch in a pokemon which they hope can counter my lead, believing Jirachi to be Scarfed. If I am yet again lucky, this will be a pokemon that I can hit for super-effective damage also, resulting in the battle beginning with two solid hits to my opponent.
The move choice is made for me to hit as many leads as possible for super-effective damage as I can. At the moment Ice Punch is my preferred move to Grass Knot because I don't really see Swamperts anymore. Also they are easily handled by Celebi anyway. Ice Punch also helps against Gliscor because Gliscor can be quite troublesome, especially to the team’s game plan, which is to set up Lucario, by Taunting Rotom-A and Gyarados it makes their attempts to set up futile, and U-Turn hits Celebi very hard, and as it stands Gliscor makes an impressive check to Tyranitar and Lucario. With Ice Punch I may also be able to hit an overzealous Salamence trying to Dragon Dance, which is the bane of my team. However, frankly, I don’t care because if you can ban Latias due to the overcentralisation of the metagame then Salamence must become a candidate surely. Even if I do run Ice Punch Gliscor isn’t KOed so maybe it isn’t really necessary.
After doing some damage calculations this pokemon really shines against other leads. Jirachi KOs Aerodactyl, Swampert and Roserade (disregarding the Focus Sashes) with the three different moves of choice. It 2HKOs Azelf, Jirachi (~80% of the time) and Tyranitar standard leads each with Iron Head, Fire Punch and Iron Head respectively. The only disappointment of the damage calcs is Metagross, which with the standard smogon strategydex, is only 3HKOed.
Stealth Rock is the other methods by which I can check Salamence. Along with Salamence Stealth Rock also checks Gyarados however I am not as screwed if he DDs. The third noteworthy mention relating to Jirachi’s is the frustrating-as-hell flinch rate of Iron Head and Serene Grace combining. This causes insanity among many players without pokemon with a 4x resistance to Steel type moves. I must say that once upon a time I would’ve cared but I developed this team after losing a match where I came from losing a game where I went from a certain chance to win to a loss after a Gliscor KOed both of my remaining pokemon. So what I’m saying is suck it up and be a man.
The main reason for such a strange set as this is not for the element of surprise (which is quite nice though and helps give me the upper hand) but to allocate a job for Jirachi later in the game which is to get a sort of mid game sweep. Nothing much really stops Jirachi as long as it doesn’t resist its attacks.
How Jirachi helps Lucario/Celebi:
In short, it doesn’t really. The rest of the team helps him more. Through the jobs of Rotom-W/Tyranitar/Gyarados in removing his counters and obtain a mid game sweep. I suppose you could say that this paves the way for a sweep but Jirachi doesn’t really help in any particular way so that doesn’t count.
Synergy:
Tyranitar, Gyarados
Rotom-W, Gyarados, Celebi
@ Leftovers
Trait: Levitate
EV: 252 HP/168 Def/88 Spd
Timid nature (+Spd, -Atk)
Thunderbolt
Will-o-wisp
Substitute
Pain Split
Can I just start by praising the inclusion of such a pokemon as Rotom into the metagame? There will truly never be another such pokemon as Rotom ever again. An Electric type pokemon without the inherent Ground weakness of other Electric types is so useful. On top of this, Levitate as well as its excellent typing give it two excellent immunities to common types, Fighting and Ground. Rotom’s typing allows it to make an impressive check to the likes of such dangerous pokemon as Metagross, Scizor and Lucario. And that brings us to the reason why Rotom-W is on this team.
As well as also countering the annoying-as-hell Skarmory, Rotom-W makes an excellent check to the aforementioned pokemon, which I previously had weaknesses to due to the Stealth Rock weakness of Gyarados, making it too fragile to reliably check any combination of the three for the duration of an entire game, hence this has become quite an important part of the team due to the potency of these three pokemon.
In sacrificing a Tyranitar check to add this to the team (you’ll know that if you read the intro), it means that I needed to add an extra Tyranitar check, but rather than adding another pokemon to the team, this pokemon’s set was determined at the same time that I realised that I could use this as another way to dispatch Tyranitar. So enter Sub-wow-Rotom-W, designed to check Tyranitar as well as perform all the normal functions of Rotom-A. Then again, I could be imagining a Tyranitar weakness, especially with Lucario on the team.
I’ll give you a rundown on how Sub-wow-Rotom works. Basically, switch into a pokemon you can beat one on one and Substitute on the switch. From there you can deal with the switch in accordingly. Since most of Rotom’s switch ins don’t like taking a burn to the face (with the exception of Heatran), your most common move will be to use Will-o-wisp. However if they do switch in Heatran or another special attacker you use Thunderbolt, and if the switch in is Heatran, then unless the opponent has Wish support or the set is Rest-Sleep Talk you will eventually wear down Heatran. This strategy is so successful at taking down or at least crippling Rotom’s designated ‘counters’. Pain Split is a very important part of the strategy, replenishing Rotom’s health after he Subs.
Rotom’s synergy with Tyranitar is flawless; both by countering his common switch ins and using his immunities to help with Tyranitar’s rather common weaknesses in Fighting and Ground moves. Tyranitar somewhat helps the partnership also; using his resistances to sponge Rotom’s weakness and helping to dispatch Heatran.
How Rotom-W helps Lucario/Celebi:
Rotom helps the pair by providing their support with help. Tyranitar and to a lesser extent Gyarados are aided by Rotom’s immunities/resistances. By destroying Lucario, Metagross and Scizor Rotom aids Tyranitar and it aids Gyarados by beating up bulky waters which are common counters to Gyarados. So his help is more indirect than direct.
Synergy:
Tyranitar, Lucario
Tyranitar, Lucario
@ Choice Scarf
Trait: Sand Stream
EV: 4 HP/252 Atk/252 Spd
Jolly nature (+Spd, -SAtk)
Stone Edge
Superpower
Crunch
Pursuit
Scarftar is a really good pokemon and for the record I was using it before it became super popular and was on every team. But now that Latias has defected back to Ubers I find that everybody has stopped using it. I find that it remains a good check to several pokemon which outspeed and kill other forms of Tyranitar, which are Infernape, Starmie and Gengar. In fact this is my only check to the former two pokemon and the latter is only checked by Gyarados, which is Stealth Rock weak.
I was using Scarftar long before it became the hip new trend and I find that it is the best partner of all the Tyranitar sets to Lucario as it is the only one to outspeed and destroy such Lucario checks as Gengar, Celebi and Rotom-A. It also outsped non-DD Salamences or DDmence before a Dragon Dance. At these tasks all other Tyranitars fail at partnering with Lucario. On top of his job as a Scarfed check to Lucario’s check, he can also successfully lure Gliscor, the best check to Lucario, even though he doesn’t do that much he can still weaken it, making it easier to KO later.
In the days before Scarftar’s popularity drastically increased due to Latias’ participation in the OU metagame, Scarftar was rarely seen, and so Tyranitar served as an excellent lure as Gengar etc. who always stayed in. Along with the lure aspect of Tyranitar’s role there is also the ability to trap and Pursuit them to provide no escape to make sure that they don’t pester Lucario later.
In my other SDLuke team, I used a Scarfed Mixtar, which worked to an extent, but for that to pay off I had to run a Nature that reduced one of my defences, which wasn’t preferable, as Tyranitar also somewhat filled the role of a special sponge as well. The physical variant of Scarftar still hits just as hard, and indeed harder than his Mixed counterpart.
Tyranitar is my first switch in to Heatran, which is a common hell to both of my late game sweepers, so it is pretty much essential that this pokemon hangs around until Heatran and all other fast Pursuit weak pokemon are gone.
Tyranitar’s Sand Stream is sometimes a bother for some of the other pokemon of the team on the team, most notably Gyarados, which is both plagued by Stealth Rock and without reliable recovery. However, in the end, the positive aspects of Tyranitar far outweighed the negative aspects (also ½ the team was immune to sandstorm anyway) so he remained on the team anyway.
As has been previously mentioned, Tyranitar is a great partner to Rotom-W, by being my initial switch in to the Ghost- and Dark-types that are bitches to Rotom.
How Tyranitar helps Lucario/Celebi:
Tyranitar is an excellent partner to Lucario in particular, by countering common Lucario checks such as Gengar, Celebi, Rotom-A, Zapdos, Heatran and Infernape. The former four can be Pursuited to cut their lifespan short while a Scarf Earthquake will quickly destroy Infernape and Heatran. However in terms of typing both share similar weaknesses which are remedied by Celebi’s convenient typing. As previously mentioned Gengar, Rotom-A, Zapdos, Heatran and Infernape are all beaten by this specific variant of Tyranitar, which helps Celebi.
Synergy:
Jirachi, Lucario, Celebi
Gyarados, Celebi
Rotom-W, Lucario, Gyarados
Rotom-W, Gyarados, Celebi
Rotom-W, Gyarados, Celebi
Jirachi, Rotom-W, Lucario, Gyarados
@ Leftovers
Trait: Intimidate
EV: 156 HP/72 Atk/96 Def/184 Spd
Adamant nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
Dragon Dance
Waterfall
Stone Edge
Earthquake/Taunt
Gyarados helps overall with the sweeping duo of Celebi and Lucario especially by removing the common Heatran, which beats both of my main sweepers. Gyarados also makes a moderately good check to Lucario and Scizor, but it isn’t really that reliable due to its Stealth Rock weakness and lack of recovery. During the testing of this team one consistent weakness I had was a lack of recovery. This made my team easy to wear down and in general not very reliable at all.
Due to Gyarados’ short lifespan because of how ever-present Stealth Rock is, Gyarados prefers to set up early/mid game to weaken the opposing team before Celebi and Lucario come in for their fun. In addition to this, the pokemon that he can set up on increase due to Taunt screwing over many switch ins, and stuff like Swampert becomes huge set up bait, especially when it Roars on my Taunt.
During testing I began running Earthquake became much better. The main advantages of this were to make sure that common Gyarados didn’t set up as I switched out by Taunting the switch in. The main pokemon this was designated to stop was the Wish/Protect of Vaporeon and especially the Calm Mind of Suicune. The second reason for this was to prevent common phazers from ruining my sweep. The most common offenders in this case were Skarmory/Swampert. By Dragon Dancing as they switched in I was able to Taunt before they phazed me and set up a second Dragon Dance, making phazers easy set up bait. During the ending of one match I set up a sweep on a Swampert and from there I was able to KO all of the four remaining pokemon with a +2 Waterfall and a Stone Edge (for my opponent’s mence).
Intimidate is unbelievably useful, hitting the primarily physical metagame with a -1 on the opponent’s attack every time I switch in. This applies to everything except Metagross. Due to the attack drop of pokemon I am able to effectively counter Lucario/Scizor. However due to the Stealth Rock weakness that I keep ranting about there is basically only one time I can stop these pokemon.
Now due to the general lack of recovery on the team and Gyarados’ Stealth Rock weakness I would like to include a Wishpasser. The easiest solution, however would be to include Wish on Jirachi. Don’t suggest this as all three moves on Jirachi are necessary.
How Gyarados helps Lucario/Celebi:
Gyarados is an excellent partner to both pokemon by using his resistances to sponge a variety of their weaknesses. All of Lucario’s weaknesses are covered by this and 3/7 Celebi’s weaknesses are likewise covered. In addition to this, Gyarados also sets up on many counters to the two sweepers, namely Heatran, Scizor and Weavile (lol). To add to the benefits of Gyarados also note that Gyarados’ weakness are covered by Celebi ad Lucario as well as his would-be checks, mainly bulky waters, are destroyed by Celebi.
Synergy:
Rotom-W, Celebi
Jirachi, Lucario
@ Life Orb
Trait: Inner Focus
EV: 252 Atk/4 Def/252 Spd
Jolly nature (+Spd, -SAtk)
Swords Dance
Close Combat
Ice Punch/Bullet Punch
Extremespeed
Swords Dance Lucario is a great pokemon to set up for a sweep and a pokemon which is easy to support. With its weaknesses nullified by Gyarados and Rotom-W and its counters hopefully dealt with earlier in the match by Scarftar this pokemon’s job is very easy due to the high chance that all pokemon stopping him are all hopefully eliminated. Lucario is my only check to Tyranitar, but hopefully it won’t be necessary to reveal him too early in the game, as Rotom-W serves as a lure to Tyranitar, and Rotom-W will be revealed earlier in the match due to the ease with which Scizor can switch in.
Basically the pokemon that counter this that aren’t exactly handled well are Salamence and Gliscor which are conveniently handled both by Ice Punch. Crunch is a bit redundant as the pokemon it’s designed to hit it doesn’t even OHKO. Extremespeed may be better used as Bullet Punch as sometimes Gengar can remain intact due to the fact that Tyranitar isn’t always such a solid check. Then again I can't decide whether or not to run Bullet Punch to not get revenged by Scarftar. At the moment I'm running Ice Punch because mence switch ins are easy to predict.
Lucario is a really easy pokemon to pair with. For starters many pokemon lure Lucario’s counters and several can eliminate those counters easily. But Lucario has many checks so checking them all is rather difficult, especially if you plan on doing it all with one pokemon. So to acquire a Swords Dance Lucario sweep it is preferable to run as much support as possible. In this team I have chosen to run a Scarftar and a DDGyarados as well as Celebi as both a backup plan and lure for Heatran and Zapdos.
When I bring in Lucario I usually only intend to revenge kill a pokemon with Extremespeed. What I am trying to say is that Lucario rarely gets up a sweep. I’m not really complaining as where Lucario fails Celebi makes up for it, obtaining numerous sweeps in the rather small period of time I’ve been using this team.
Lucario’s ability means that he doesn’t become pray to the common Iron Head which (it is hypocritical to say) is annoying. While the opponent may hit me with a Scarfed Iron Head (it is extraordinary that people see Lucario coming in and think ‘zomg, I can just haz hax to beatz him!!!’), I can get some Close Combats in to provide a way around the hax. Note that this is a last minute check for if the likes of Rotom-W and Gyarados both go down.
Frankly it would be stupid to include the paragraph about ‘How Lucario helps Lucario/Celebi’ so I’m just going to move onto...
Synergy:
Tyranitar, Gyarados
Rotom-W, Gyarados, Celebi
Rotom-W, Gyarados, Celebi
@ Life Orb
Trait: Natural Cure
EV: 4 HP/252 SAtk/252 Spd
Timid nature (+Spd, -Atk)
Leaf Storm
Psychic
Earth Power
Recover
Celebi is quite an underated sweeper and I often ponder at why. He is simply brilliant, Leaf Storm smashing EVERYTHING, Natural Cure means Blissey isn’t as big a bitch as it is to other sweepers, it has a good speed stat, outrunning key pokemon and rival sweepers Gyarados and Lucario, and it has impressive bulk. Celebi has many attributes that make other sweepers blush in comparison.
Often in my team this was simply a casual Life Orb pokemon that came in, did as much damage and Recovered to do it all again. This was when there wasn’t any help to its cause and I had to rely on prediction to eliminate such threats as Shuca/Scarf Heatran and Scizor (when I had Hidden Power Fire). With support it plays completely differently, coming out only to eliminate pesky bulky waters that may threaten an early Gyarados mini-sweep and then coming out at the right moment to destroy the opponent.
Part of Celebi’s success is due to its ability, Natural Cure. This is one of the more overlooked abilities and means that unlike other special sweepers (with the exception of LOStarmie, another pokemon that I really love), I don’t get screwed by Blissey.
The moveset choices were very deliberate and intended to beat specific pokemon. For example, Earth Power was selected to deal with the otherwise extremely difficult pokemon Heatran. Psychic is likewise to Machamp and also hit so much for neutral damage. When I switch into a pokemon that will obviously switch out I use Psychic. This is because it does the best average damage overall to the metagame in general without considering Leaf Storm, because of the SAtk drop that makes me very vulnerable to Pursuit pokemon. I don’t really see Scizor as a problem as they rarely ever use Pursuit so I automatically switch out.
My friend runs Rest on his Celebi, which could be a fun alternative until I consider that Celebi is supposed to come out late game when the scores are tight and one wrong move on someone’s part will result in a loss for that person. Still, it might pay off to use Rest for when I come in midgame so that when I come in late game I will be at full health.
Likewise with Lucario, a paragraph about ‘How Celebi helps Lucario/Celebi:’ would be pointless so I’ll skip straight to
Synergy:
Tyranitar, Gyarados
Rotom-W, Gyarados, Lucario
Jirachi, Rotom-W, Lucario
Jirachi, Lucario
Jirachi, Rotom-W, Tyranitar
Tyranitar, Lucario
Tyranitar, Lucario
Closing Words:
I’ve stated many times throughout the body of the RMT that the main problem with this team is the lack of recovery. This can result in problems against stall however otherwise this team has fared adequately thus far.
Over a testing period of two hours each pokemon does its job well and there were no glaring weaknesses, because frankly I came up against everything (lol sunflora). However there are a few things I’d like to bring up in another section:
Possible Changes:
The first potential change that came to mind was Jirachi’s moveset. While all the current damaging moves all do great damage against their intended targets, I have noticed that Stealth Rock is rarely used. And when pondering the implications of removing it I concluded that it would make me a bit weaker to mence (gyara is solidly covered). But including Ice Punch will give me coverage on Salamence anyway so I wonder which would be better. I am currently keeping Stealth Rock for just in case I need it. Your thoughts?
So due to the amount of time I spent on this RMT and team in general I would really appreciate it if you could rate the team, or maybe even drop in just to praise how good this team is (jokes).
Life Orb Celebi is quite an interesting pokemon. For starters its fantastic base stats of 100 across the board make it quick and relatively bulky. On top of this it also makes a nice check to the infinitely useful pokemon class affectionately known as bulky waters. Alongside these things, Celebi makes an impressive Life Orb sweeper. With these positive traits it’s only natural that I have acquired a fanatical obsession with Celebi (which also has a humorous onion-like appearance).
Now let’s look at the pokemon that can stop a Lucario sweep:
Gliscor
Salamence
Gyarados
Rotom-A
Choice Scarf Heatran
Zapdos
Gengar
Just to name a few.
And Celebi’s checks:
Choice Scarf Heatran
Salamence
Zapdos
Gengar
Scizor
Tyranitar
Weavile
Skarmory
Just to name a few
When we look at this we notice that both share some counters. I have bolded the coinciding ones for those in a rush. I have also italicized the threats that are handled by the other pokemon (e.g. Lucario handles Tyranitar, Celebi handles Gyarados). So for the next pokemon I looked for was something that could handle these shared threats as well as others that threatened individual pokemon.
The next addition to the team was Tyranitar. He made an excellent partner to Lucario especially due to his ability to counter pokemon that give Lucario a hard time. These include such pokemon such as Gengar and Rotom-A. Tyranitar was also an excellent choice those bolded pokemon in the above list that threatened Celebi + Lucario. Among these troublesome pokemon were Zapdos, Heatran and Gengar. Tyranitar also helped with another difficulty that this team had at this point, which was Rotom-A and Zapdos. In addition to the positive aspects of having a pokemon such as Tyranitar in the team the negative aspects, (his plethora of weaknesses) is aided by the abundance of fighting resists already as well as a ground immunity and a water and grass resistance in Celebi. Choice Scarf Tyranitar seems to be the best set as with a Scarf Tyranitar can check Gengar and Starmie better and as Latias has been relocated back to Ubers less Tyranitar would now be Scarfed, giving me surprise value, expecially in the coming months when his popularity will drop if I predict correctly.
The next part of the development of this team was that both Celebi and Lucario, while not really sharing counters, do share potential partners. Both pokemon work well when paired with Gyarados. With the dangerous Dragon Dancer supporting Celebi and Lucario, the favour is returned, mostly in typing, with Celebi resisting the electric attacks plaguing Gyarados, and Lucario taking pathetic x0.25 damage from Rock attacks, the other weakness that prevents a Gyarados sweep. Gyarados seemed to help with checking the remaining pokemon on the list with the exception of Salamence (which might be moving to Ubers soon) and Skarmory.
The next choice I made was to include Scizor into the team. It didn’t seem to work that well but it did provide me with a check to Salamence and Mamoswine. Scizor fitted in well with Celebi by defeating his checks that commonly carried Pursuit which were Tyranitar and Weavile.
With all its checks out of the way I chose a mixed Jirachi set with Stealth Rock that feigned Choice Scarf to lead and mid to late game it could function as a clever wall breaker with the notorious Iron Head flinch rate which made a mess of sure fire counters, and with Gyarados, Salamence and Heatran all solidly handled by the other members of this team. On top of this, Jirachi beats Tyranitar and it serves as a nice anti lead.
So I had my team of Jirachi/Scizor/Tyranitar/Gyarados/Lucario/Celebi, but it just didn’t really work having a rather annoying Gyarados weakness as well as the reality that I didn’t handle Scizor that well. So I opted to run a Rotom forme which would remedy both of these problems. I ran Rotom instead of Scizor as I thought that a better way to dispatch Tyranitar was to lure and then burn it.
So this brings us to the current version of the team (Note also that I used a Suicune in the place of Gyarados for a short time). So in conclusion I’ll apologize for the huge wall of text thus far and also apologize for the amount which you are about to read.
Now some actually useful information:
~ 1 weak to Stealth Rock
~ 1 weak to Toxic Spikes (if you don’t count Natural Cure Celebi)
~ At least 2 resistances to every type
~ Doesn’t use Scizor. In the current state of the OU metagame to not use a Scizor is a significant achievement.
The current version of the team:
In Depth:
@ Expert Belt
Trait: Serene Grace
EV: 252 Atk/4 SAtk/252 Spd
Hasty nature (+Spd, -Def)
Iron Head
Fire Punch
Grass Knot/Ice Punch
Stealth Rock
This is quite an unusual lead which I have enjoyed using, and to my great delight I have obtained an impressively IVed, Hasty Jirachi from the Jirachi event in Australia, which has inspired me to possibly create this team for Wi-Fi, (but back on topic) this lead provides two great elements of surprise which, if utilized correctly, gives me the ideal start to any match and hopefully the opponent’s situation doesn’t get any better than that.
The first of these surprises that my opponent will experience is the coverage of this particular Jirachi set. I can hit most leads quite hard (usually on the first turn because I get a bit excited when I can hit something for a lot of damage). Leads such as Hippowdon, Swampert, Aerodactyl, Tyranitar, Bronzong, Metagross and other Jirachi are hit for super-effective damage from my moves of choice. The second of these surprises occurs after the initial move from Jirachi. The opponent will rely on their resistances to switch in a pokemon which they hope can counter my lead, believing Jirachi to be Scarfed. If I am yet again lucky, this will be a pokemon that I can hit for super-effective damage also, resulting in the battle beginning with two solid hits to my opponent.
The move choice is made for me to hit as many leads as possible for super-effective damage as I can. At the moment Ice Punch is my preferred move to Grass Knot because I don't really see Swamperts anymore. Also they are easily handled by Celebi anyway. Ice Punch also helps against Gliscor because Gliscor can be quite troublesome, especially to the team’s game plan, which is to set up Lucario, by Taunting Rotom-A and Gyarados it makes their attempts to set up futile, and U-Turn hits Celebi very hard, and as it stands Gliscor makes an impressive check to Tyranitar and Lucario. With Ice Punch I may also be able to hit an overzealous Salamence trying to Dragon Dance, which is the bane of my team. However, frankly, I don’t care because if you can ban Latias due to the overcentralisation of the metagame then Salamence must become a candidate surely. Even if I do run Ice Punch Gliscor isn’t KOed so maybe it isn’t really necessary.
After doing some damage calculations this pokemon really shines against other leads. Jirachi KOs Aerodactyl, Swampert and Roserade (disregarding the Focus Sashes) with the three different moves of choice. It 2HKOs Azelf, Jirachi (~80% of the time) and Tyranitar standard leads each with Iron Head, Fire Punch and Iron Head respectively. The only disappointment of the damage calcs is Metagross, which with the standard smogon strategydex, is only 3HKOed.
Stealth Rock is the other methods by which I can check Salamence. Along with Salamence Stealth Rock also checks Gyarados however I am not as screwed if he DDs. The third noteworthy mention relating to Jirachi’s is the frustrating-as-hell flinch rate of Iron Head and Serene Grace combining. This causes insanity among many players without pokemon with a 4x resistance to Steel type moves. I must say that once upon a time I would’ve cared but I developed this team after losing a match where I came from losing a game where I went from a certain chance to win to a loss after a Gliscor KOed both of my remaining pokemon. So what I’m saying is suck it up and be a man.
The main reason for such a strange set as this is not for the element of surprise (which is quite nice though and helps give me the upper hand) but to allocate a job for Jirachi later in the game which is to get a sort of mid game sweep. Nothing much really stops Jirachi as long as it doesn’t resist its attacks.
How Jirachi helps Lucario/Celebi:
In short, it doesn’t really. The rest of the team helps him more. Through the jobs of Rotom-W/Tyranitar/Gyarados in removing his counters and obtain a mid game sweep. I suppose you could say that this paves the way for a sweep but Jirachi doesn’t really help in any particular way so that doesn’t count.
Synergy:
@ Leftovers
Trait: Levitate
EV: 252 HP/168 Def/88 Spd
Timid nature (+Spd, -Atk)
Thunderbolt
Will-o-wisp
Substitute
Pain Split
Can I just start by praising the inclusion of such a pokemon as Rotom into the metagame? There will truly never be another such pokemon as Rotom ever again. An Electric type pokemon without the inherent Ground weakness of other Electric types is so useful. On top of this, Levitate as well as its excellent typing give it two excellent immunities to common types, Fighting and Ground. Rotom’s typing allows it to make an impressive check to the likes of such dangerous pokemon as Metagross, Scizor and Lucario. And that brings us to the reason why Rotom-W is on this team.
As well as also countering the annoying-as-hell Skarmory, Rotom-W makes an excellent check to the aforementioned pokemon, which I previously had weaknesses to due to the Stealth Rock weakness of Gyarados, making it too fragile to reliably check any combination of the three for the duration of an entire game, hence this has become quite an important part of the team due to the potency of these three pokemon.
In sacrificing a Tyranitar check to add this to the team (you’ll know that if you read the intro), it means that I needed to add an extra Tyranitar check, but rather than adding another pokemon to the team, this pokemon’s set was determined at the same time that I realised that I could use this as another way to dispatch Tyranitar. So enter Sub-wow-Rotom-W, designed to check Tyranitar as well as perform all the normal functions of Rotom-A. Then again, I could be imagining a Tyranitar weakness, especially with Lucario on the team.
I’ll give you a rundown on how Sub-wow-Rotom works. Basically, switch into a pokemon you can beat one on one and Substitute on the switch. From there you can deal with the switch in accordingly. Since most of Rotom’s switch ins don’t like taking a burn to the face (with the exception of Heatran), your most common move will be to use Will-o-wisp. However if they do switch in Heatran or another special attacker you use Thunderbolt, and if the switch in is Heatran, then unless the opponent has Wish support or the set is Rest-Sleep Talk you will eventually wear down Heatran. This strategy is so successful at taking down or at least crippling Rotom’s designated ‘counters’. Pain Split is a very important part of the strategy, replenishing Rotom’s health after he Subs.
Rotom’s synergy with Tyranitar is flawless; both by countering his common switch ins and using his immunities to help with Tyranitar’s rather common weaknesses in Fighting and Ground moves. Tyranitar somewhat helps the partnership also; using his resistances to sponge Rotom’s weakness and helping to dispatch Heatran.
How Rotom-W helps Lucario/Celebi:
Rotom helps the pair by providing their support with help. Tyranitar and to a lesser extent Gyarados are aided by Rotom’s immunities/resistances. By destroying Lucario, Metagross and Scizor Rotom aids Tyranitar and it aids Gyarados by beating up bulky waters which are common counters to Gyarados. So his help is more indirect than direct.
Synergy:
@ Choice Scarf
Trait: Sand Stream
EV: 4 HP/252 Atk/252 Spd
Jolly nature (+Spd, -SAtk)
Stone Edge
Superpower
Crunch
Pursuit
Scarftar is a really good pokemon and for the record I was using it before it became super popular and was on every team. But now that Latias has defected back to Ubers I find that everybody has stopped using it. I find that it remains a good check to several pokemon which outspeed and kill other forms of Tyranitar, which are Infernape, Starmie and Gengar. In fact this is my only check to the former two pokemon and the latter is only checked by Gyarados, which is Stealth Rock weak.
I was using Scarftar long before it became the hip new trend and I find that it is the best partner of all the Tyranitar sets to Lucario as it is the only one to outspeed and destroy such Lucario checks as Gengar, Celebi and Rotom-A. It also outsped non-DD Salamences or DDmence before a Dragon Dance. At these tasks all other Tyranitars fail at partnering with Lucario. On top of his job as a Scarfed check to Lucario’s check, he can also successfully lure Gliscor, the best check to Lucario, even though he doesn’t do that much he can still weaken it, making it easier to KO later.
In the days before Scarftar’s popularity drastically increased due to Latias’ participation in the OU metagame, Scarftar was rarely seen, and so Tyranitar served as an excellent lure as Gengar etc. who always stayed in. Along with the lure aspect of Tyranitar’s role there is also the ability to trap and Pursuit them to provide no escape to make sure that they don’t pester Lucario later.
In my other SDLuke team, I used a Scarfed Mixtar, which worked to an extent, but for that to pay off I had to run a Nature that reduced one of my defences, which wasn’t preferable, as Tyranitar also somewhat filled the role of a special sponge as well. The physical variant of Scarftar still hits just as hard, and indeed harder than his Mixed counterpart.
Tyranitar is my first switch in to Heatran, which is a common hell to both of my late game sweepers, so it is pretty much essential that this pokemon hangs around until Heatran and all other fast Pursuit weak pokemon are gone.
Tyranitar’s Sand Stream is sometimes a bother for some of the other pokemon of the team on the team, most notably Gyarados, which is both plagued by Stealth Rock and without reliable recovery. However, in the end, the positive aspects of Tyranitar far outweighed the negative aspects (also ½ the team was immune to sandstorm anyway) so he remained on the team anyway.
As has been previously mentioned, Tyranitar is a great partner to Rotom-W, by being my initial switch in to the Ghost- and Dark-types that are bitches to Rotom.
How Tyranitar helps Lucario/Celebi:
Tyranitar is an excellent partner to Lucario in particular, by countering common Lucario checks such as Gengar, Celebi, Rotom-A, Zapdos, Heatran and Infernape. The former four can be Pursuited to cut their lifespan short while a Scarf Earthquake will quickly destroy Infernape and Heatran. However in terms of typing both share similar weaknesses which are remedied by Celebi’s convenient typing. As previously mentioned Gengar, Rotom-A, Zapdos, Heatran and Infernape are all beaten by this specific variant of Tyranitar, which helps Celebi.
Synergy:
@ Leftovers
Trait: Intimidate
EV: 156 HP/72 Atk/96 Def/184 Spd
Adamant nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
Dragon Dance
Waterfall
Stone Edge
Earthquake/Taunt
Gyarados helps overall with the sweeping duo of Celebi and Lucario especially by removing the common Heatran, which beats both of my main sweepers. Gyarados also makes a moderately good check to Lucario and Scizor, but it isn’t really that reliable due to its Stealth Rock weakness and lack of recovery. During the testing of this team one consistent weakness I had was a lack of recovery. This made my team easy to wear down and in general not very reliable at all.
Due to Gyarados’ short lifespan because of how ever-present Stealth Rock is, Gyarados prefers to set up early/mid game to weaken the opposing team before Celebi and Lucario come in for their fun. In addition to this, the pokemon that he can set up on increase due to Taunt screwing over many switch ins, and stuff like Swampert becomes huge set up bait, especially when it Roars on my Taunt.
During testing I began running Earthquake became much better. The main advantages of this were to make sure that common Gyarados didn’t set up as I switched out by Taunting the switch in. The main pokemon this was designated to stop was the Wish/Protect of Vaporeon and especially the Calm Mind of Suicune. The second reason for this was to prevent common phazers from ruining my sweep. The most common offenders in this case were Skarmory/Swampert. By Dragon Dancing as they switched in I was able to Taunt before they phazed me and set up a second Dragon Dance, making phazers easy set up bait. During the ending of one match I set up a sweep on a Swampert and from there I was able to KO all of the four remaining pokemon with a +2 Waterfall and a Stone Edge (for my opponent’s mence).
Intimidate is unbelievably useful, hitting the primarily physical metagame with a -1 on the opponent’s attack every time I switch in. This applies to everything except Metagross. Due to the attack drop of pokemon I am able to effectively counter Lucario/Scizor. However due to the Stealth Rock weakness that I keep ranting about there is basically only one time I can stop these pokemon.
Now due to the general lack of recovery on the team and Gyarados’ Stealth Rock weakness I would like to include a Wishpasser. The easiest solution, however would be to include Wish on Jirachi. Don’t suggest this as all three moves on Jirachi are necessary.
How Gyarados helps Lucario/Celebi:
Gyarados is an excellent partner to both pokemon by using his resistances to sponge a variety of their weaknesses. All of Lucario’s weaknesses are covered by this and 3/7 Celebi’s weaknesses are likewise covered. In addition to this, Gyarados also sets up on many counters to the two sweepers, namely Heatran, Scizor and Weavile (lol). To add to the benefits of Gyarados also note that Gyarados’ weakness are covered by Celebi ad Lucario as well as his would-be checks, mainly bulky waters, are destroyed by Celebi.
Synergy:
@ Life Orb
Trait: Inner Focus
EV: 252 Atk/4 Def/252 Spd
Jolly nature (+Spd, -SAtk)
Swords Dance
Close Combat
Ice Punch/Bullet Punch
Extremespeed
Swords Dance Lucario is a great pokemon to set up for a sweep and a pokemon which is easy to support. With its weaknesses nullified by Gyarados and Rotom-W and its counters hopefully dealt with earlier in the match by Scarftar this pokemon’s job is very easy due to the high chance that all pokemon stopping him are all hopefully eliminated. Lucario is my only check to Tyranitar, but hopefully it won’t be necessary to reveal him too early in the game, as Rotom-W serves as a lure to Tyranitar, and Rotom-W will be revealed earlier in the match due to the ease with which Scizor can switch in.
Basically the pokemon that counter this that aren’t exactly handled well are Salamence and Gliscor which are conveniently handled both by Ice Punch. Crunch is a bit redundant as the pokemon it’s designed to hit it doesn’t even OHKO. Extremespeed may be better used as Bullet Punch as sometimes Gengar can remain intact due to the fact that Tyranitar isn’t always such a solid check. Then again I can't decide whether or not to run Bullet Punch to not get revenged by Scarftar. At the moment I'm running Ice Punch because mence switch ins are easy to predict.
Lucario is a really easy pokemon to pair with. For starters many pokemon lure Lucario’s counters and several can eliminate those counters easily. But Lucario has many checks so checking them all is rather difficult, especially if you plan on doing it all with one pokemon. So to acquire a Swords Dance Lucario sweep it is preferable to run as much support as possible. In this team I have chosen to run a Scarftar and a DDGyarados as well as Celebi as both a backup plan and lure for Heatran and Zapdos.
When I bring in Lucario I usually only intend to revenge kill a pokemon with Extremespeed. What I am trying to say is that Lucario rarely gets up a sweep. I’m not really complaining as where Lucario fails Celebi makes up for it, obtaining numerous sweeps in the rather small period of time I’ve been using this team.
Lucario’s ability means that he doesn’t become pray to the common Iron Head which (it is hypocritical to say) is annoying. While the opponent may hit me with a Scarfed Iron Head (it is extraordinary that people see Lucario coming in and think ‘zomg, I can just haz hax to beatz him!!!’), I can get some Close Combats in to provide a way around the hax. Note that this is a last minute check for if the likes of Rotom-W and Gyarados both go down.
Frankly it would be stupid to include the paragraph about ‘How Lucario helps Lucario/Celebi’ so I’m just going to move onto...
Synergy:
@ Life Orb
Trait: Natural Cure
EV: 4 HP/252 SAtk/252 Spd
Timid nature (+Spd, -Atk)
Leaf Storm
Psychic
Earth Power
Recover
Celebi is quite an underated sweeper and I often ponder at why. He is simply brilliant, Leaf Storm smashing EVERYTHING, Natural Cure means Blissey isn’t as big a bitch as it is to other sweepers, it has a good speed stat, outrunning key pokemon and rival sweepers Gyarados and Lucario, and it has impressive bulk. Celebi has many attributes that make other sweepers blush in comparison.
Often in my team this was simply a casual Life Orb pokemon that came in, did as much damage and Recovered to do it all again. This was when there wasn’t any help to its cause and I had to rely on prediction to eliminate such threats as Shuca/Scarf Heatran and Scizor (when I had Hidden Power Fire). With support it plays completely differently, coming out only to eliminate pesky bulky waters that may threaten an early Gyarados mini-sweep and then coming out at the right moment to destroy the opponent.
Part of Celebi’s success is due to its ability, Natural Cure. This is one of the more overlooked abilities and means that unlike other special sweepers (with the exception of LOStarmie, another pokemon that I really love), I don’t get screwed by Blissey.
The moveset choices were very deliberate and intended to beat specific pokemon. For example, Earth Power was selected to deal with the otherwise extremely difficult pokemon Heatran. Psychic is likewise to Machamp and also hit so much for neutral damage. When I switch into a pokemon that will obviously switch out I use Psychic. This is because it does the best average damage overall to the metagame in general without considering Leaf Storm, because of the SAtk drop that makes me very vulnerable to Pursuit pokemon. I don’t really see Scizor as a problem as they rarely ever use Pursuit so I automatically switch out.
My friend runs Rest on his Celebi, which could be a fun alternative until I consider that Celebi is supposed to come out late game when the scores are tight and one wrong move on someone’s part will result in a loss for that person. Still, it might pay off to use Rest for when I come in midgame so that when I come in late game I will be at full health.
Likewise with Lucario, a paragraph about ‘How Celebi helps Lucario/Celebi:’ would be pointless so I’ll skip straight to
Synergy:
Closing Words:
I’ve stated many times throughout the body of the RMT that the main problem with this team is the lack of recovery. This can result in problems against stall however otherwise this team has fared adequately thus far.
Over a testing period of two hours each pokemon does its job well and there were no glaring weaknesses, because frankly I came up against everything (lol sunflora). However there are a few things I’d like to bring up in another section:
Possible Changes:
The first potential change that came to mind was Jirachi’s moveset. While all the current damaging moves all do great damage against their intended targets, I have noticed that Stealth Rock is rarely used. And when pondering the implications of removing it I concluded that it would make me a bit weaker to mence (gyara is solidly covered). But including Ice Punch will give me coverage on Salamence anyway so I wonder which would be better. I am currently keeping Stealth Rock for just in case I need it. Your thoughts?
So due to the amount of time I spent on this RMT and team in general I would really appreciate it if you could rate the team, or maybe even drop in just to praise how good this team is (jokes).