Hello all, for those of you who don't know me, I'm a fairly new, but not completely incompetent ADV OU Player, I've been on PO for about a year now, and just recently joined showdown. Anyway, this is the team I am most proud of. It has brought me a lot of success. I have tweaked and tested it for a while now, so some fresh eyes would be nice. The team revolves around a forretress, gengar, pursuit tar core, and focuses on burning and picking off calm mind blissey's counters with gengar and dugtrio, so that it can sweep. It is fairly stallish so does most of it's damage with spikes, however it is still capable of providing offensive pressure in order to really take advantage of those spikes.
At a Glance:
Tyranitar
Godzilla (Tyranitar) (M) @ Leftovers
Trait: Sand Stream
EVs: 184 HP / 220 SAtk / 100 SDef / 4 Spd
Modest Nature (+SAtk, -Atk)
- Roar
- Crunch
- Pursuit
- Flamethrower
The team leads with Tyranitar. Despite the fact that in the majority of lead match ups, ttar is not favored, i chose to lead with it for a couple reasons. Firstly it gets sand up right off the bat, which helps the team wear down the opposition a lot. Secondly, it allows me to potentially trap an opposing lead gengar, or dent opposing lead skarm, or forre on the first turn. Thirdly it helps against the majority of baton pass leads, and finally, i didn't really have a better lead. I hate leading forretress, just puts you on a back foot right off the bat and gives no way of scouting for magneton, leading gengar leaves me vulnerable to opposing pursuit pokes, milotic while decent as a lead just doesn't threaten anything other than the standard physical sweepers, and risks getting surprised turn 1 by a toxic, and of course i wasn't going to lead with blissey or dugtrio. The set is a pursuit variant and serves a few purposes. It gets rid of gengar the majority of the time which clears the way for forretress to spin, and helps prevent any explosion shenanigans against blissey, or any of the other tricks gengar can pull against a team. It also acts as a way to wear down swampert as well as spikers such as skarmory, forretress and cloyster who if given the chance to spike up can prove problematic, finally, it gets up sand which is important for this team as it helps wear down the opposition, and scores me some guaranteed KOs i wouldn't otherwise have. The move set is a little different. I chose flamethrower over fire blast for two reasons, first it prevents jirachi and celebi from pp stalling and avoiding my attacks while they set up calm minds, this allows me to kill them with dugtrio more easily. secondly, it prevents me from losing the surprise kill on forretress thanks to an unfortunate miss. The only place where the power loss really matters is against skarmory, who doesn't appreciate taking the flamethrowers anyway. Crunch really helps me take out opposing gengar, the majority of the time they stay in and just die, and if they do switch out, they won't stay in the next time for sure after seeing crunch, giving me the ability to pursuit them. Crunch also acts as a nice strong spammable STAB attack, and hits a lot harder than many expect. It does a nice chunk to swampert, which in conjunction with spikes wears it down quick. Roar is mainly for shadowball curselax, it can't really do much to ttar, and with roar, sand and spikes, i can usually wear it down to death before it has a chance to set up, or be last poke. Outside of this, tyranitar makes a pretty decent phazer due to the abundance of water types wanting to switch in on it, which get worn down by spikes. Finally it helps against opposing baton pass teams. The EVs allow me to survive jolly dugtrio earthquakes, as well as starmie's hydro pumps, allowing me to KO back with crunch (most of the time). 4 speed creeps against other tar, mix gross, and neutral natured pert. The rest is thrown into special attack to maximize damage output. In the event that it is put to sleep by hypnosis gar, I still have blissey as a decent answer to gengar, and with sleep clause activated, hypnosis gar has a more difficult time wearing blissey down with spikes.
Gengar
Poltergeist (Gengar) (M) @ Leftovers
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 88 Def / 32 SAtk / 56 SDef / 80 Spd
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Punch
- Will-O-Wisp
- Taunt
The gengar set functions as this team's spin blocker and late game cleaner. For those who are not in touch with the ADV metagame, while it may seem counter intuitive, a bulky set is preferable on gengar if you are using it as a spin blocker. The ability to sponge a few attacks while attempting to block rapid spins is much more useful than the extra power. As gengar does not have special STAB it is not going to be breaking through its walls with sheer power, rather through its excellent support move pool and coverage, and a bulky set takes advantage of this to a greater degree, being able to stick around longer to get off a few more will-o-wisps. The things gengar hits hard such as salamence, gyarados and flygon among others are hit hard regardless of investment, meanwhile the things that wall gengar such as blissey and snorlax won't be taking much either way. The power loss is also offset by the spikes. The main difference between this set and the average bulky gar set is that it drops a fair bit of speed in favor of greater bulk. The EVs still allow it to outspeed neutral base 100s with a small speed creep which is more than enough for this set. the main things that outspeed it are things that either threaten it either way, such as offensive celebi, or already outspeed such as in the case of raikou and starmie. Everything this gengar really needs to outspeed is below 303 speed, with the exception of the rare jolly flygon and salamence, as well as some +1 dd tar which i have dugtrio for anyway. Note however that with this spread, this gengar does not match up well against opposing gengar. The defense evs allow it to survive +1 HP flying from mence in sand. They are also useful for taking other random attacks, for example when burned, snorlax's shadow ball does only around 35%. The special attack evs allow it to always kill 116HP mence in sandstream. It will always kill 4HP mence without the help of sand. Finally the rest is thrown in to special defense to allow it to take a stab psychic in sand from a special attack stat of 262 (claydol's max). This helps with taking random special attacks such as cloyster surfs, and makes it so even modest blissey's ice beam does a maximum of 34%. This means you don't usually have to be afraid of getting in a taunt to prevent a softboiled, as even if they do out predict you it's not a huge deal, as a side note though if they have a dragon dance salamence, it is often a good idea to keep gengar at full health, as gengar's ability to counter dd mence at full health can often be a huge asset if milotic is weak, especially considering how often people will stay in to HP fly against a full health gengar when they are at +1. The move set is designed to not only help my calm mind bliss, but also to really take advantage of spikes. Thunderbolt and Icepunch are obvious coverage moves, and taunt + will-o-wisp are extremely helpful. Will-o-wisp burns physical attackers that can stop my blissey's sweep, such as metagross, snorlax and tyranitar. this coupled with taunt helps wear down opposing blissey and snorlax, as they cannot recover their health with softboiled, Burning a curselax also forces it to rest, and with the addition of taunt and spikes it will usually rest the first chance it gets instead of cursing up, meaning i will have the opportunity come in on a predicted rest with dugtrio and 3hko. Not to mention that EQ lax and blissey lacking in offensive moves other than seismic toss are completely blanked by this gar set.
Forretress
UFO (Forretress) (F) @ Leftovers
Trait: Sturdy
EVs: 252 HP / 56 Atk / 200 SDef
Careful Nature (+SDef, -SAtk)
- Hidden Power [Bug]
- Rapid Spin
- Spikes
- Explosion
Forretress rounds out the core, providing the spikes and rapid spin that make it so deadly. It of course requires pursuit tar as it cannot spin past gengar. It also has good synergy with gengar, as the only spinners that gengar cannot block, starmie and claydol, are beat one on one by this particular forretress set. Hidden power bug is mainly for starmie, claydol and celebi. Rapid spin and spikes are the reason to use forretress, and are fairly self explanatory. finally explosion prevents forretress from being set up fodder, and can pull me out of a hole against something like snorlax or suicune. It also couples well with dugtrio, as if explosion fails to KO, i can always follow up with dugtrio to finish the job. The EVs allow me to always 2hko 252HP, 0Def starmie. HP is maximized with the rest thrown in to special defense so that forretress can take a few surfs from starmie, while simultaneously being able to set up spikes on bulky waters, regice and porygon2 more easily. Note that the IVs are as follows 31/31/31/31/30/14. This is the lowest speed 70 base power HP bug spread that still allows me to out speed snorlax. This gives me an edge against opposing forretress, while allowing me to explode before lax curses up or fire blasts.
Dugtrio
Mole Men (Dugtrio) (F) @ Choice Band
Trait: Arena Trap
EVs: 32 HP / 204 Atk / 20 SDef / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature (+Spd, -SAtk)
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- Hidden Power [Bug]
- Aerial Ace
Dugtrio really covers up a lot of holes in the team. It traps and kills magneton who gives forretress issues, opposing pursuit users such as tyranitar and houndoom who give gengar issues, celebi, metagross, breloom, heracross, blaziken, the list goes on. It can even come in on a predicted rest from snorlax or regice, and 3hko them while they sleep. It also gives more breathing room against a number of offensive threats including dragon dance tyranitar and raikou, among other offensive CM pokes such as jirachi and celebi. The set is fairly standard, max speed for opposing dugtrio, raikou, and +1 tyranitar, special defense and HP investment to always survive raikou hidden powers, with the rest in attack to maximize damage output. While the special defense evs may seem unnecessary when i have blissey, they are helpful as a crit thunderbolt at +6 in a calm mind war against raikou will lose me the game if i don't have dugtrio, also if raikou has any special defense investment, and I am unlucky with damage rolls, raikou can pp stall me because icebeam is not guaranteed to break its sub. Going in to a calm mind war is a risk i am not willing to take, so I would rather just have a guaranteed kill with dugtrio, whether it subs up/hidden powers on the switch or not. the evs also allow me to survive HP grass from enemy pursuit tar which is useful. The move set is self explanatory.
Milotic
Leviathan (Milotic) (M) @ Leftovers
Trait: Marvel Scale
EVs: 252 HP / 240 Def / 16 Spd
Bold Nature (+Def, -Atk)
- Surf
- Ice Beam
- Toxic
- Recover
After quite a bit of testing, pondering and debating, I have finally decided to replace swampert with milotic. There are 2 main disadvantages to milotic, the first is the lack of the rock resist. This leaves my team more vulnerable to ttar and aero, who can now spam rock slide pretty freely. ttar is somewhat manageable with dugtrio, but aero can be a nuisance at times. i can usually get a nice 50% chunk out of it with pursuit tar, but that ttar is often spread pretty thin, and aero doesn't exactly have a reason to use double edge or hp fly against my team. The other disadvantage is that it gives me one poke that can't hit starmie hard, giving it a chance to spin against milo. This is fairly minor though since everything else can. The advantages though i have finally decided, outweight these disadvantages. The first and most obvious advantage, is that it allows me not to be completely dead to a number of pokemon i was dead to before, these include, defensive roar cune, cm flamethrower hp grass blissey, random mixed attackers that use fire grass coverage. It also gives me a good switch in for opposing swampert. I've never had issues with it before, but i never really had a safe switch for it either. The other advantages are the greater difficulty of wearing it down due to recover, and the inability to surprise it. Milotic doesn't really fear anything, it's not like you can take 70% out of it with a surprise hp grass, and if you do hit it hard, it can always sneak in a recover later. The moveset is pretty standard, with toxic to help against cm blissey, force roar cune to rest, and just provide more passive damage. The EVs are to speed creep against opposing physical attackers that like to reside in the 200 speed range, like dd tar and metagross, with the rest maximizing physical defense.
Blissey
The Blob (Blissey) (F) @ Leftovers
Trait: Natural Cure
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Def / 248 SAtk / 4 Spd
Modest Nature (+SAtk, -Atk)
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Beam
- Soft-Boiled
- Calm Mind
Ironically, Blissey has kind of taken over as this team's primary win condition. Once I have burned physical attackers, and picked off a few threats with dugtrio, there isn't really much that can stop the pink blob from rolling through a team. Calm mind Blissey like many tanks is the kind of sweeper that although not immediately threatening, is capable of sticking around much longer than many of its counters can, and thanks to natural cure and softboiled, it is extremly resilient, even more so than curselax and cune. It just keeps coming back. This is useful because unlike dragon dance tyranitar for example, blissey doesn't have too much to worry about in the early game, and can still act as a good check to the pokemon it is meant to check. I can wall their special attackers all game, and still have more than enough left in the tank to sweep late game, which not many pokemon can pull off. Outside of sweeping, blissey is also my primary check to the majority of calm mind offense, as well as specially based defensive pokemon such as suicune, milotic, and zapdos. The move set is fairly standard for calm mind bliss, i opted for bolt beam as gyarados can be an issue for this team otherwise. 4HP gives me an even HP stat to maximize softboiled recovery. 4 Speed gives me an advantage against opposing bliss should i need to get off a softboiled at low health. Max defense allows me to always survive CB brick break from salamence, and the rest is thrown into special attack to maximize damage output. The modest nature allows blissey to hit a lot harder than people would think, and gives me a much better chance of KOing opposing dugtrio as well as breaking raikou subs should it come to that.
Threats to keep in mind
This team runs into issues with last poke curselax and roar cune. Blissey is my usual check to suicune, however with roar it can simply phaze me out as i try to match it's boosts. It also means that before I've scouted the cune set i have to be careful not to let it set up too much against my blissey. Shadow ball lax can be difficult especially as a last poke, roar on ttar helps a lot, although paralysis can be annoying, although it does prevent ttar from being put to sleep. While my team may lack good answers to these pokemon, they do find it difficult to set up, as spikes + sand is constantly wearing them down, and the only recovery they have is rest, so I can easily beat them as long as i don't give them the chance to set up or be last poke. Aerodactyl can be a problem, it can just spam rock slide and an untimely flinch can often be quite problematic. Another issue is a recent team archetype that uses multiple subsalac users to overwhelm opponents. Still, between dugtrio, and sand they are manageable, however I have to predict well or they will constantly wear down my walls, and blissey is a very easy switch for them. A few niche threats such as Hariyama and Ludicolo can be quite difficult. Finally, if blissey somehow goes down during the course of the match I am usually in a serious hole, as it really is the glue that holds the team together and i don't have any pokemon that can just win games on their own, except occasionally gengar, but usually it's kept in check pretty well by a good team. Any advice would be appreciated thank you.
Importable:
At a Glance:
Tyranitar
Godzilla (Tyranitar) (M) @ Leftovers
Trait: Sand Stream
EVs: 184 HP / 220 SAtk / 100 SDef / 4 Spd
Modest Nature (+SAtk, -Atk)
- Roar
- Crunch
- Pursuit
- Flamethrower
The team leads with Tyranitar. Despite the fact that in the majority of lead match ups, ttar is not favored, i chose to lead with it for a couple reasons. Firstly it gets sand up right off the bat, which helps the team wear down the opposition a lot. Secondly, it allows me to potentially trap an opposing lead gengar, or dent opposing lead skarm, or forre on the first turn. Thirdly it helps against the majority of baton pass leads, and finally, i didn't really have a better lead. I hate leading forretress, just puts you on a back foot right off the bat and gives no way of scouting for magneton, leading gengar leaves me vulnerable to opposing pursuit pokes, milotic while decent as a lead just doesn't threaten anything other than the standard physical sweepers, and risks getting surprised turn 1 by a toxic, and of course i wasn't going to lead with blissey or dugtrio. The set is a pursuit variant and serves a few purposes. It gets rid of gengar the majority of the time which clears the way for forretress to spin, and helps prevent any explosion shenanigans against blissey, or any of the other tricks gengar can pull against a team. It also acts as a way to wear down swampert as well as spikers such as skarmory, forretress and cloyster who if given the chance to spike up can prove problematic, finally, it gets up sand which is important for this team as it helps wear down the opposition, and scores me some guaranteed KOs i wouldn't otherwise have. The move set is a little different. I chose flamethrower over fire blast for two reasons, first it prevents jirachi and celebi from pp stalling and avoiding my attacks while they set up calm minds, this allows me to kill them with dugtrio more easily. secondly, it prevents me from losing the surprise kill on forretress thanks to an unfortunate miss. The only place where the power loss really matters is against skarmory, who doesn't appreciate taking the flamethrowers anyway. Crunch really helps me take out opposing gengar, the majority of the time they stay in and just die, and if they do switch out, they won't stay in the next time for sure after seeing crunch, giving me the ability to pursuit them. Crunch also acts as a nice strong spammable STAB attack, and hits a lot harder than many expect. It does a nice chunk to swampert, which in conjunction with spikes wears it down quick. Roar is mainly for shadowball curselax, it can't really do much to ttar, and with roar, sand and spikes, i can usually wear it down to death before it has a chance to set up, or be last poke. Outside of this, tyranitar makes a pretty decent phazer due to the abundance of water types wanting to switch in on it, which get worn down by spikes. Finally it helps against opposing baton pass teams. The EVs allow me to survive jolly dugtrio earthquakes, as well as starmie's hydro pumps, allowing me to KO back with crunch (most of the time). 4 speed creeps against other tar, mix gross, and neutral natured pert. The rest is thrown into special attack to maximize damage output. In the event that it is put to sleep by hypnosis gar, I still have blissey as a decent answer to gengar, and with sleep clause activated, hypnosis gar has a more difficult time wearing blissey down with spikes.
Gengar
Poltergeist (Gengar) (M) @ Leftovers
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 88 Def / 32 SAtk / 56 SDef / 80 Spd
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Punch
- Will-O-Wisp
- Taunt
The gengar set functions as this team's spin blocker and late game cleaner. For those who are not in touch with the ADV metagame, while it may seem counter intuitive, a bulky set is preferable on gengar if you are using it as a spin blocker. The ability to sponge a few attacks while attempting to block rapid spins is much more useful than the extra power. As gengar does not have special STAB it is not going to be breaking through its walls with sheer power, rather through its excellent support move pool and coverage, and a bulky set takes advantage of this to a greater degree, being able to stick around longer to get off a few more will-o-wisps. The things gengar hits hard such as salamence, gyarados and flygon among others are hit hard regardless of investment, meanwhile the things that wall gengar such as blissey and snorlax won't be taking much either way. The power loss is also offset by the spikes. The main difference between this set and the average bulky gar set is that it drops a fair bit of speed in favor of greater bulk. The EVs still allow it to outspeed neutral base 100s with a small speed creep which is more than enough for this set. the main things that outspeed it are things that either threaten it either way, such as offensive celebi, or already outspeed such as in the case of raikou and starmie. Everything this gengar really needs to outspeed is below 303 speed, with the exception of the rare jolly flygon and salamence, as well as some +1 dd tar which i have dugtrio for anyway. Note however that with this spread, this gengar does not match up well against opposing gengar. The defense evs allow it to survive +1 HP flying from mence in sand. They are also useful for taking other random attacks, for example when burned, snorlax's shadow ball does only around 35%. The special attack evs allow it to always kill 116HP mence in sandstream. It will always kill 4HP mence without the help of sand. Finally the rest is thrown in to special defense to allow it to take a stab psychic in sand from a special attack stat of 262 (claydol's max). This helps with taking random special attacks such as cloyster surfs, and makes it so even modest blissey's ice beam does a maximum of 34%. This means you don't usually have to be afraid of getting in a taunt to prevent a softboiled, as even if they do out predict you it's not a huge deal, as a side note though if they have a dragon dance salamence, it is often a good idea to keep gengar at full health, as gengar's ability to counter dd mence at full health can often be a huge asset if milotic is weak, especially considering how often people will stay in to HP fly against a full health gengar when they are at +1. The move set is designed to not only help my calm mind bliss, but also to really take advantage of spikes. Thunderbolt and Icepunch are obvious coverage moves, and taunt + will-o-wisp are extremely helpful. Will-o-wisp burns physical attackers that can stop my blissey's sweep, such as metagross, snorlax and tyranitar. this coupled with taunt helps wear down opposing blissey and snorlax, as they cannot recover their health with softboiled, Burning a curselax also forces it to rest, and with the addition of taunt and spikes it will usually rest the first chance it gets instead of cursing up, meaning i will have the opportunity come in on a predicted rest with dugtrio and 3hko. Not to mention that EQ lax and blissey lacking in offensive moves other than seismic toss are completely blanked by this gar set.
Forretress
UFO (Forretress) (F) @ Leftovers
Trait: Sturdy
EVs: 252 HP / 56 Atk / 200 SDef
Careful Nature (+SDef, -SAtk)
- Hidden Power [Bug]
- Rapid Spin
- Spikes
- Explosion
Forretress rounds out the core, providing the spikes and rapid spin that make it so deadly. It of course requires pursuit tar as it cannot spin past gengar. It also has good synergy with gengar, as the only spinners that gengar cannot block, starmie and claydol, are beat one on one by this particular forretress set. Hidden power bug is mainly for starmie, claydol and celebi. Rapid spin and spikes are the reason to use forretress, and are fairly self explanatory. finally explosion prevents forretress from being set up fodder, and can pull me out of a hole against something like snorlax or suicune. It also couples well with dugtrio, as if explosion fails to KO, i can always follow up with dugtrio to finish the job. The EVs allow me to always 2hko 252HP, 0Def starmie. HP is maximized with the rest thrown in to special defense so that forretress can take a few surfs from starmie, while simultaneously being able to set up spikes on bulky waters, regice and porygon2 more easily. Note that the IVs are as follows 31/31/31/31/30/14. This is the lowest speed 70 base power HP bug spread that still allows me to out speed snorlax. This gives me an edge against opposing forretress, while allowing me to explode before lax curses up or fire blasts.
Dugtrio
Mole Men (Dugtrio) (F) @ Choice Band
Trait: Arena Trap
EVs: 32 HP / 204 Atk / 20 SDef / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature (+Spd, -SAtk)
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- Hidden Power [Bug]
- Aerial Ace
Dugtrio really covers up a lot of holes in the team. It traps and kills magneton who gives forretress issues, opposing pursuit users such as tyranitar and houndoom who give gengar issues, celebi, metagross, breloom, heracross, blaziken, the list goes on. It can even come in on a predicted rest from snorlax or regice, and 3hko them while they sleep. It also gives more breathing room against a number of offensive threats including dragon dance tyranitar and raikou, among other offensive CM pokes such as jirachi and celebi. The set is fairly standard, max speed for opposing dugtrio, raikou, and +1 tyranitar, special defense and HP investment to always survive raikou hidden powers, with the rest in attack to maximize damage output. While the special defense evs may seem unnecessary when i have blissey, they are helpful as a crit thunderbolt at +6 in a calm mind war against raikou will lose me the game if i don't have dugtrio, also if raikou has any special defense investment, and I am unlucky with damage rolls, raikou can pp stall me because icebeam is not guaranteed to break its sub. Going in to a calm mind war is a risk i am not willing to take, so I would rather just have a guaranteed kill with dugtrio, whether it subs up/hidden powers on the switch or not. the evs also allow me to survive HP grass from enemy pursuit tar which is useful. The move set is self explanatory.
Milotic
Leviathan (Milotic) (M) @ Leftovers
Trait: Marvel Scale
EVs: 252 HP / 240 Def / 16 Spd
Bold Nature (+Def, -Atk)
- Surf
- Ice Beam
- Toxic
- Recover
After quite a bit of testing, pondering and debating, I have finally decided to replace swampert with milotic. There are 2 main disadvantages to milotic, the first is the lack of the rock resist. This leaves my team more vulnerable to ttar and aero, who can now spam rock slide pretty freely. ttar is somewhat manageable with dugtrio, but aero can be a nuisance at times. i can usually get a nice 50% chunk out of it with pursuit tar, but that ttar is often spread pretty thin, and aero doesn't exactly have a reason to use double edge or hp fly against my team. The other disadvantage is that it gives me one poke that can't hit starmie hard, giving it a chance to spin against milo. This is fairly minor though since everything else can. The advantages though i have finally decided, outweight these disadvantages. The first and most obvious advantage, is that it allows me not to be completely dead to a number of pokemon i was dead to before, these include, defensive roar cune, cm flamethrower hp grass blissey, random mixed attackers that use fire grass coverage. It also gives me a good switch in for opposing swampert. I've never had issues with it before, but i never really had a safe switch for it either. The other advantages are the greater difficulty of wearing it down due to recover, and the inability to surprise it. Milotic doesn't really fear anything, it's not like you can take 70% out of it with a surprise hp grass, and if you do hit it hard, it can always sneak in a recover later. The moveset is pretty standard, with toxic to help against cm blissey, force roar cune to rest, and just provide more passive damage. The EVs are to speed creep against opposing physical attackers that like to reside in the 200 speed range, like dd tar and metagross, with the rest maximizing physical defense.
Blissey
The Blob (Blissey) (F) @ Leftovers
Trait: Natural Cure
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Def / 248 SAtk / 4 Spd
Modest Nature (+SAtk, -Atk)
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Beam
- Soft-Boiled
- Calm Mind
Ironically, Blissey has kind of taken over as this team's primary win condition. Once I have burned physical attackers, and picked off a few threats with dugtrio, there isn't really much that can stop the pink blob from rolling through a team. Calm mind Blissey like many tanks is the kind of sweeper that although not immediately threatening, is capable of sticking around much longer than many of its counters can, and thanks to natural cure and softboiled, it is extremly resilient, even more so than curselax and cune. It just keeps coming back. This is useful because unlike dragon dance tyranitar for example, blissey doesn't have too much to worry about in the early game, and can still act as a good check to the pokemon it is meant to check. I can wall their special attackers all game, and still have more than enough left in the tank to sweep late game, which not many pokemon can pull off. Outside of sweeping, blissey is also my primary check to the majority of calm mind offense, as well as specially based defensive pokemon such as suicune, milotic, and zapdos. The move set is fairly standard for calm mind bliss, i opted for bolt beam as gyarados can be an issue for this team otherwise. 4HP gives me an even HP stat to maximize softboiled recovery. 4 Speed gives me an advantage against opposing bliss should i need to get off a softboiled at low health. Max defense allows me to always survive CB brick break from salamence, and the rest is thrown into special attack to maximize damage output. The modest nature allows blissey to hit a lot harder than people would think, and gives me a much better chance of KOing opposing dugtrio as well as breaking raikou subs should it come to that.
Threats to keep in mind
This team runs into issues with last poke curselax and roar cune. Blissey is my usual check to suicune, however with roar it can simply phaze me out as i try to match it's boosts. It also means that before I've scouted the cune set i have to be careful not to let it set up too much against my blissey. Shadow ball lax can be difficult especially as a last poke, roar on ttar helps a lot, although paralysis can be annoying, although it does prevent ttar from being put to sleep. While my team may lack good answers to these pokemon, they do find it difficult to set up, as spikes + sand is constantly wearing them down, and the only recovery they have is rest, so I can easily beat them as long as i don't give them the chance to set up or be last poke. Aerodactyl can be a problem, it can just spam rock slide and an untimely flinch can often be quite problematic. Another issue is a recent team archetype that uses multiple subsalac users to overwhelm opponents. Still, between dugtrio, and sand they are manageable, however I have to predict well or they will constantly wear down my walls, and blissey is a very easy switch for them. A few niche threats such as Hariyama and Ludicolo can be quite difficult. Finally, if blissey somehow goes down during the course of the match I am usually in a serious hole, as it really is the glue that holds the team together and i don't have any pokemon that can just win games on their own, except occasionally gengar, but usually it's kept in check pretty well by a good team. Any advice would be appreciated thank you.
Importable:
Godzilla (Tyranitar) (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 184 HP / 220 SAtk / 100 SDef / 4 Spd
Modest Nature
- Roar
- Crunch
- Pursuit
- Flamethrower
Poltergeist (Gengar) (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 88 Def / 32 SAtk / 56 SDef / 80 Spd
Timid Nature
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Punch
- Will-O-Wisp
- Taunt
UFO (Forretress) (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Sturdy
EVs: 252 HP / 56 Atk / 200 SDef
Careful Nature
IVs: 30 SDef / 14 Spd
- Hidden Power [Bug]
- Rapid Spin
- Spikes
- Explosion
Mole Men (Dugtrio) (F) @ Choice Band
Ability: Arena Trap
EVs: 32 HP / 204 Atk / 20 SDef / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- Hidden Power [Bug]
- Aerial Ace
Leviathan (Milotic) (M) @ Leftovers
Trait: Marvel Scale
EVs: 252 HP / 240 Def / 16 Spd
Bold Nature (+Def, -Atk)
- Surf
- Ice Beam
- Toxic
- Recover
The Blob (Blissey) (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Def / 248 SAtk / 4 Spd
Modest Nature
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Beam
- Soft-Boiled
- Calm Mind
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