Building a team around a pokémon

[Trust]

There are people whose teams was made by this method. You choose a pokémon, and after that, you start to build the rest of the team around it. However, it's one of the less used ways to build a team, so I create this thread to this.

I think that we should try to do a little guide with our opinions and experiences here about how to build one of these teams, what steps do you follow, and if these teams are succesful or not.

I'm looking forward to reading your answers!

 

[Articanus]

This is usually how I make my teams. Or at least to pick the first 3/ 4 pokemon, then I tie up the loose ends, covering up any common threats that I might have missed.

 

[ViVi]

Ive started making teams around my favorite Pokemon, The one im doing now I have my Sweeper, then I list all its counters, and figure out how to Lure them out and deal with them for the sweep.

Alternativly, I have a Shuckle team I made, wiht a couple Bulky sweepers around it to deal with stuff that would like to setup on Shuckle

 

[Dragontamer]

I've done a few teams like this. I first choose a Pokemon, and then I find a niche that that Pokemon can fill that no other pokemon can do better. I have yet to create a successful team this way, but I still think this technique has promise :-p

The one team I made that I remember most clearly was to revolve around an Agility Hitmonchan. Why? Because there are no Pokemon who have a semi-bulky Sp. Def, learns every single Elemental Punch in the game
and learns Agility. Again, the team I made eventually sucked... but you get the point. >_>

The general plan was to switch Hitmonchan into a special attack it can survive, Agility up while it scares away the attacker, and then sweep with Close Combat / Thunder Punch / Ice Punch.

In the end, I guess Hitmonchan is just outclassed by just about everything >_> It was just too weak and couldn't handle the walls, and had no way to boost its attack aside from Iron Fist... which was still weaker than Medicham and Machamp at the end of the day. This way of thought is useful however to test the optimal potential of a Pokemon.

--------

Although... there was one time I made a team around Bellyzard now that I think of it. It involved a Hypnosis / Taunt Focus Sash Crobat lead, which aims to get free turns through either Hypnosis or Taunt, and obviously a rapid spinner. It was mildly successful, but if I chose a stronger "base" pokemon, it probably would have been even better.

 

[Kira]

I originally learned team building by picking 1 pokemon... for example, Heracross.

I then looked at his counters section, and looked up a counter to one of his counters... I then did this for the 2nd pokemon and so on until I had 6.

It actually worked pretty well, but now I like building teams around a certain strategy (such as Paralysis Team, Stall team, all out offense, etc...)

 

[Sayamora]

The main way you build a team around one Pokemon is on a Baton Pass team.

 

[maddog]

This is generally how I build teams as well. Sometimes I think of something, say Togekiss, and find out how I can make it as broken as possible. In Togekiss' case, it is paraylsis' support. Generally though, this sort of thinking usually involves Baton Passing; which is also fun.

 

[altex]

I star maing my teams around 2 o 3 pokemon involved in some strategy. The other 3 pokemon have to cover the other and fit (or ad least dont go against) the strategy.

 

[pokewiz]

team making

What i do is that i pick pokemon with wide move spands. That way they can cover their weaknesses. Alos i try not to put too many of 1 type or too many ones with the same job. If a pokemon cannot cover its own weakness, then i bring in a pokemon that can cover its weakness and then some.

like i did a lopunny. i focused my team around it.

 

[PirateDelux]

Usually when I begin building a team I pick the walls, cover their weaknesses, then I pick 1 MAIN sweeper and sweepers than cover what it doesnt cover, and it's weaknesses.

I'd take Blissey. It can't handle much physical abuse. In comes forretress. Forretress is 4x weak to fire, so in comes Gyarados,(OR/AND) Swampert, (OR/AND) Heatran, or any other fire resisting/absorbing pokemon.

 

[Rhykune]

When I do this, first I get a pokemon that covers the main pokemon's weaknesses. In the case of my CM Jirachi team, which I made with IPL, I used Gyarados. Next I find something that can either lure or always take out the majority of counters. Dugtrio got all of them except for Garchomp. I made sure to have Garchomp counters and just tried to fill in any holes. My team ended up like Gyarados/Bronzong/Starmie/Jirachi/WishBlissey/Dugtrio. It worked very well.

 

[kd24]

I've done a few teams like this. I first choose a Pokemon, and then I find a niche that that Pokemon can fill that no other pokemon can do better. I have yet to create a successful team this way, but I still think this technique has promise :-p

The one team I made that I remember most clearly was to revolve around an Agility Hitmonchan. Why? Because there are no Pokemon who have a semi-bulky Sp. Def, learns every single Elemental Punch in the game
and learns Agility. Again, the team I made eventually sucked... but you get the point. >_>

The general plan was to switch Hitmonchan into a special attack it can survive, Agility up while it scares away the attacker, and then sweep with Close Combat / Thunder Punch / Ice Punch.

In the end, I guess Hitmonchan is just outclassed by just about everything >_> It was just too weak and couldn't handle the walls, and had no way to boost its attack aside from Iron Fist... which was still weaker than Medicham and Machamp at the end of the day. This way of thought is useful however to test the optimal potential of a Pokemon.

--------

Although... there was one time I made a team around Bellyzard now that I think of it. It involved a Hypnosis / Taunt Focus Sash Crobat lead, which aims to get free turns through either Hypnosis or Taunt, and obviously a rapid spinner. It was mildly successful, but if I chose a stronger "base" pokemon, it probably would have been even better.

Not really important to the topic but did you try this for Gallade as well? Baton Pass an Agility to Gallade probably with Zapdos when they have a special attacker out. Then they run because of your base 125 special defense. SD's on that turn and you would pretty much win. Just wondering if you tried out anything else for that.

 

[DevilinDenial]

I originally did this with one Pokemon, but as I got better I started doing 2 very recently :)

Overall, building a team like this is taking thing(s) that compliment eachother, ie, (LO)Gengar and Infernape, then stopping Azelf and ScarfChomp that beat both, I'd use Uxie, then cover shit and add support until I get a really good build, then try to find ways tobeat my own team and fix appropriately. This is why I almost never do RMTs.

This is probably a habit from Advanced, but almost all my affectiver teams have Gengar/Swampert/Skarm and base and I add from there. Find your favorite defensive combo and you can make a team with just about everything. A mention to the people who will say, "If the base goes down you're stuck with crappy stall or meaningless offense" then I want to mention that you're forgetting the backup/checkmate Poke that almost every team needs.

Building around a Poke is probably the most effective building style, but undoubtedly the hardest.

 

[Dragontamer]

Not really important to the topic but did you try this for Gallade as well? Baton Pass an Agility to Gallade probably with Zapdos when they have a special attacker out. Then they run because of your base 125 special defense. SD's on that turn and you would pretty much win. Just wondering if you tried out anything else for that.

There is a core difference between how a stat-upper is played vs a Baton Passer. There are much better things to pass an agility too, so if I ever bother making an agility based baton pass team... I'll be passing it to Breloom, Flinch Hax Kiss, etc. etc.

Also, a stat upper is expected to take 1 hit switching in, possibly 1 hit while statting up, and then do something with its increased speed. On the other hand, a Baton Pass recipient is usually only expected to take 1 hits, maybe even 0 hits depending on the circumstances. (when using a slow baton passer like Togekiss or anti-Pursuit Celebi). The Baton Passer absorbs the hits and then passes the boosts to the other guy.

 

[IggyBot]

I wouldn't say that building around one pokemon is the most effective style, as there are several ways to go about team building. However, for the sake of example, I'll explain how I built my Azelf team, which was very, very successful in setting up Azelf to sweep.

I needed multiple ways to beat Azelf counters, mainly Blissey, Cresselia, Weavile and Heatran. The first thing that came to mind was Lucario, who also makes a pretty good Tyranitar switch in. Specs Lucario with Vacuum Wave (which was very uncommon at the time) could switch into Weavile, and beat Cresselia and Blissey. Now I also needed a back up way to beat Blissey and Cress. So I added Life Orb Gengar with Explosion. Shadow Ball beat Cresselia, and I could bait Blissey with Focus Blast, before finally exploding. Now I had my core, Azelf, Lucario and Gengar.

I added SingBliss, because back then I really needed something to fall back on to take hits, and SingBliss is just plain awesome, probably not the best addition though.

Now, I was Gyarados and Garchomp weak, and I also needed Stealth Rock. Mesprit came along, wielding Thunderbolt, Ice Beam, Stealth Rock, good defenses and Levitate. Finally, I added Scarfchomp, since I had an open slot, and I was lacking speed and physical power. Now the team on paper is super-weak to pursuiters and such like Weavile and Tyranitar, yet I had absolutly NO problem with them, thanks to the way the team was designed to take them down.

This team took quite a while to build, but was a very, very successful team, that had quite an impressive record on Shoddy. As of today, it is the second best team I've built.

Also, I would like to point out something else in this post that's important. On paper, my team is incredibly weak to Tyranitar, Weavile, and Pursuiters in general. However, I never had any problems with any of the before mentioned pokemon, except for TyraniBoah (which was really, really annoying). Azelf swept an estimated 66%-70% of my wins, which means the team pulled off what I needed it to, despite the horrendous weakness's on paper. Basically, even if something looks a little off on paper when building a team, you HAVE TO TEST to actually see what's truely wrong.

 

[Lyfsaho]

There's actually an primary example for "building a team around one pokemon" that was not mentioned yet: Wobbuffet. It literally requires you to build your team around it - if that's a good thing, now that is questionable. ^^

 

[Dr.Traveler]

The main way you build a team around one Pokemon is on a Baton Pass team.

It isn't the only way. Its incredibly easy to build a team around Garchomp using Magnezone to trap the counters, Tyranitar and Hippodown for the Sandstorm, etc.

You can do the same for almost any other Dragon by running Magnezone to trap, a lure for the Dragon Counters, and a favorable stat passer or weather starter.

 

[Bentendo1]

This is generally how I build teams- or at least, part of a team. I would start with a pretty strong wall combo- usually consisting of 3 Pokemon, and then add the Pokemon I was going to build the team around. Then check what still gets through, and add Pokemon accordingly.

This could also be converted into a bit broader topic, like how you go about creating a team, what's the best way to do it, etc.

 

[Kijin]

This team took quite a while to build, but was a very, very successful team, that had quite an impressive record on Shoddy. As of today, it is the second best team I've built.

Sorry to take this topic possibly off topic, but what method, if there was a method to it, did you use to build your most successful team?

 

[Trust]

I tried one team around Jynx and Dragonite, and finally, I built a team with two trappers(Magnezone and Dugtrio), a pursuiter(Spiritomb), and a Toxic Spiker(Roserade) to cause some damage... but I think that this is a team where I only used trappers to kill stuff like Heatran and Tyranitar, but I don't know if this is a good way to do it.

Anyway, a pokemon which I would love to work around is Mismagius, but I don't find the ways which should be used to build it... some suggestions?

 

[cim]

I tend to build teams around guys that I want to try out. For example, my latest Reversal Lucario team. Reversal's a pretty high-risk / high reward game, so building a team around a Reversal sweep makes it easier to do, I guess. You'll want bait for the counters, counters for the counters, wallbreakers, possible Baton Pass or psuedopass support, and of course your primary sweeper.

Then again, I suck at building teams in general, I just have a good knowledge of movesets and matchups.

 

[phalanx]

me i seem to sway towards BP combos, and thats 2 pokes, i dont tend to worry about weaknesses that much, i just make sure i have everything covered, wall wise, i usually just adapt the team occasionally to compensate for huge holes

 

[Mint]

Building a whole team around one pokemon is always a scary idea, because there's always a counter.
Such as the ninjask swords dance/detect/speed up/baton pass nonsense. It'll work most of the time, but if you find the one person that's sporting Feint, your ninjask is down and you're short your entire theme.

Granted it's pretty safe to assume that you won't see Feint a whole lot, but it's still worth it to comprise a team of six independent pokemon that can work without the assistance of each other.

 

[Dragontamer]

Building a whole team around one pokemon is always a scary idea, because there's always a counter.
Such as the ninjask swords dance/detect/speed up/baton pass nonsense. It'll work most of the time, but if you find the one person that's sporting Feint, your ninjask is down and you're short your entire theme.

Granted it's pretty safe to assume that you won't see Feint a whole lot, but it's still worth it to comprise a team of six independent pokemon that can work without the assistance of each other.

On the contrary, the single thing that shuts down Ninjask is a Phazer. Considering that Hippowdon, Skarmory, Swampert, and other common phazers are still popular, I'd say your problem is getting Phazed out, and then Stealth Rocked when you try to get back in.

Also, the Ninjask thing is old and doesn't work well in my experience. Everyone seems to know how to shut it down. The harder ones to take out are the occasional Taunt Floatzels, Roar Leafeons, Baton Passes to a Mr. Mime and whatnot.

 

[IggyBot]

Sorry to take this topic possibly off topic, but what method, if there was a method to it, did you use to build your most successful team?

My most successful team was built using a core of 4 pokemon. This ensure that each pokemon covers one another both offensivly and defensivly. Once I had found this core, I took a look at what holes it had, and what support it could best benefiet from. I added two more pokemon according to each of the niches I needed to be filled, and thus the team was born. Minor adjustments have been made in EVs and movesets, but the 6 pokemon are still the same.