Call Me Crazy

[Usatoday]

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Introduction
I have grown to absolutely love this team. It has been quite successful when I've used it on the ladder and for some localized tournament matches. The basis around the team was simple; I wanted to use Arceus-Fire and after hearing about how bad Chansey was in today's metagame because of Mega-Gengar I was curious about it myself. I created a team that is quite bizarre in it's nature in that I decided to go with a stall team obviously, but it ended up being a rain team. This was something That I thought was absolutely bizarre but somehow worked, alllowing me to use some various threats and open up moveslots for moves that are needed in the ever constant offensive metagame. These included pursuit Mega-Scizor and the ever so evil snatch Chansey.

Kyogre @ Leftovers
Ability: Drizzle
EVs: 252 HP / 224 Def / 32 Spd
Bold Nature
- Scald
- Roar
- Rest
- Sleep Talk
First up we have a personal favorite of mine in physically defensive Kyogre. It serves as a good switch in for Ekiller so that it can phaze it out as my team is a little weak to offensive oriented swords dancers such as Rayquaza. Kyogre also lets me have something to check the ever present choice banded Ho-oh so that I don't have to risk the burn with Landorus-T and rest talk allows me to heal off whatever status is thrown at me. Kyogre also serves as my secondary switch in to Darkrai after my Xerneas is down if I need a sleep fodder for my team. Scald rounds off my set as the obvious stab move that scores multiple chances to burn when spamming the move randomly.

Landorus-Therian (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Def
Impish Nature
- Earthquake
- Stealth Rock
- Toxic
- Stone Edge
This thing is a flying version of Groudon. It is simply incredible to play with and honestly it is quite annoying to face when used correctly. It can simultaneously check Rayquaza, Groudon, and Arceus through intimidate and toxic combination. Landorus also allows for my team to hit Ho-oh and Rayquaza with stone miss depending on how desperately I need to hit them. It provides the rocks support that any team nowadays must have and finally provided a stab earthquake to nail things such as Arceus-Rock, Zekrom, and Dialga.

Xerneas @ Leftovers
Ability: Fairy Aura
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SAtk
Bold Nature
- Moonblast
- Rest
- Aromatherapy
- Sleep Talk
Xerneas is sort of the oddball on my team. I find it often will either shine to the stars and back, or it will simply not do anything other than removing the status from my team. I have found that defensive Xerneas is simply an amazing check to the dragons that run rampant in the tier. It also acts as a great check to Yveltal and Darkrai who lack sludge bomb. Moonblast is ridiculously powerful even without investment that allows me to hit specially defensive Palkia for some nice damage.

Scizor @ Scizorite
Ability: Technician
EVs: 252 HP / 40 Atk / 216 SDef
Adamant Nature
- Bullet Punch
- Pursuit
- Roost
- Defog
Specially defensive Mega-Scizor the love of my life. I cannot describe how much I love using this thing. Now since I'm running Chansey on this team and the main thing that prevents Chansey from stopping it from doing it's job is Mega-Gengar pursuit might not be a bad option. Most Gengar will directly switch into Chansey from what I've found and it seemed a good way to defeat and trap Gengar especially with the rain support, I can also better handle hidden power fire variants.

Arceus-Fire @ Flame Plate
Ability: Multitype
EVs: 248 HP / 164 SDef / 96 Spd
Timid Nature
- Judgment
- Thunder
- Calm Mind
- Recover
Arceus-Fire the star of the team, and the thing that scoffs at anything Xerneas throws. Even after a geomancy Xerneas can be made into setup fodder simply by spamming calm mind and recover. Judgement and Thunder (Thanks to rain) allow for some scary coverage hitting everything pretty hard except for Zekrom and Palkia both of which scare out Arceus-Fire. Fire Arceus also allows me to turn the tides on an opponents sun team and destroy them with sun boosted judgments rising to huge power.

Chansey (F) @ Eviolite
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SDef
Bold Nature
- Seismic Toss
- Soft-Boiled
- Toxic
- Snatch
Ah my second love. This thing is what makes my stall teams, it does a great job playing mind games with all the Arceus forms. Seismic toss, Toxic, and Soft-boiled are standard moves on Chansey. Snatch however allows me to play mind games that can be incredibly fun to use. It can steal Calm minds, swords dances, and even Wishes from opposing Pokemon preventing them from healing. I have found that this is pretty much the only thing that can decently check Lustrous orb Palkia.

Importable

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Kyogre @ Leftovers
Ability: Drizzle
EVs: 252 HP / 224 Def / 32 Spd
Bold Nature
- Scald
- Roar
- Rest
- Sleep Talk

Landorus-Therian (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Def
Impish Nature
- Earthquake
- Stealth Rock
- Toxic
- Stone Edge

Xerneas @ Leftovers
Ability: Fairy Aura
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SAtk
Bold Nature
- Moonblast
- Rest
- Aromatherapy
- Sleep Talk

Scizor @ Scizorite
Ability: Technician
EVs: 252 HP / 40 Atk / 216 SDef
Adamant Nature
- Bullet Punch
- Pursuit
- Roost
- Defog

Arceus-Fire @ Flame Plate
Ability: Multitype
EVs: 248 HP / 164 SDef / 96 Spd
Timid Nature
- Judgment
- Thunder
- Calm Mind
- Recover

Chansey (F) @ Eviolite
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SDef
Bold Nature
- Seismic Toss
- Soft-Boiled
- Toxic
- Snatch

 

[haxiom]

Hey Usatoday,

Cool team. Some interesting sets and mons like physically defensive Kyogre, Fireceus, and Chansey. Fireceus is definitely viable as a total Xerneas wrecker, but I'm not quite convinced that the others are the best options. To start, def Kyogre isn't that good at walling what it should.

252+ Atk Life Orb Ho-Oh Brave Bird vs. 252 HP / 224+ Def Kyogre: 220-261 (54.4 - 64.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
+2 252 Atk Life Orb Arceus Extreme Speed vs. 252 HP / 224+ Def Kyogre: 253-300 (62.6 - 74.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery- okay fair enough
+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Rayquaza Outrage vs. 252 HP / 224+ Def Kyogre: 491-578 (121.5 - 143%) -- guaranteed OHKO- of course you kill it with xern after but still

Chansey screams out Mega Gengar bait, which is pretty bad because pursuit does not always equal dead gengar. While Scizor in the rain is probably as reliable as it gets, you cannot assume rain to be up, so it will always be tricky. You might be able to play around with it, idk but Chansey is in the Chansey viability rank for a reason. Blissey is better in general.

As for threats to this team- there are a few major ones. Kyogre is a threat, especially specs. Ho-Oh is also a threat, given the above calc. Kangaskhan is a threat. Mewtwo is also a threat. These pokemon will give this team trouble, which is not good for stall. Other than that, this team struggles with dedicated CM stallbreakers like poisonceus and steelceus. Ekiller is mildly annoying but it is tolerable. The team also lacks a real way to break through stall quickly, without a stallbreaker which is a pretty big issue.

So about fixing these issues. I can think of a few options. For one, you could run SpecsOgre > current ogre. This gives you a decent way to muscle through stall, while providing offensive pressure vs. Ho-Oh I suppose. This opens up a slight Ekiller weakness so you could throw WoW on fireceus or shift defog to it even, allowing you to run superpower on Scizor. Alternatively, running Defensive Yveltal > Kyogre will help beat Ekiller, Mewtwo, Kangaskhan, and Ho-Oh. Running Sucker Punch beats Mewtwo, but running toxic can kinda stallbreak with taunt decently. It's up to you.

OPTIMIZATION:

Kyogre- What does speed creep accomplish? 248 HP / 252+ Def / 8 SDef would work fine, or you can creep 12 Spd to outspeed Lando-T.

Lando-T- fine, optional 248 HP

Xerneas- SDef Xerneas might fit better here because it checks Yveltal better, and Zekrom is already checked sufficiently by Lando-T. I'm not sure if you want to keep it though because it does let you tank and Extreme Speed from Ekiller. If you wanted, Scarf is even viable but it shifts you towards balance quite a bit, although it adds a nice Mewtwo check.

Scizor- You should run light metal because you get technician anyways when you evolve and light metal can help with switch-ins on low kick and GK. What do EVs do? Just curious, I'd suggest something like 248 HP / 16+ Atk / 244 SDef. You should definitely run the 248 HP though.

Fireceus- fine

Blissey > Chansey imo, but if you want to keep it I get why. Snatch is a cool move, but Wish Passing is probably better here, so wish > snatch.


Nice team though overall.

Good luck!

 

[Mega-Swampert]

You might want to consider sylveon over xerneas. It is an excellent special wall, and can take a few physical hits as well, hits hard with hyper-voice, still provides cleric support, and gives you wish support. It can take on palkia,yveltal and darkrai( need to have kyogre put to sleep), and is in general an amazing wall. Xerneas is already mega-gengar bait, so that won't change much.

 

[haxiom]

You might want to consider sylveon over xerneas. It is an excellent special wall, and can take a few physical hits as well, hits hard with hyper-voice, still provides cleric support, and gives you wish support. It can take on palkia,yveltal and darkrai( need to have kyogre put to sleep), and is in general an amazing wall. Xerneas is already mega-gengar bait, so that won't change much.

While I'm not saying Sylveon isn't good, in fact Sylveon is very good on stall, I will point out that there are distinct differences between physically defensive Xerneas and Sylveon. Xerneas will be able to take many hard physical hitters and use them for free aromatherapy turns, while Sylveon is more dedicated to checking Palkia, Yveltal, and Darkrai. I mean, I can personally see both fitting on this team, and both can work well. About wish support- it's not that hard to slap that on Chansey, which will pass bigger lumps of HP.