SpeedShuffling: A Discussion of Swift Destruction (+1 example set!)

[Yagami Light]

Hello there, everyone! Today I (Light, if you don't know me) am here to discuss a strategy that is so incredibly rare that many people have probably gone their entire Pokemon careers without even so much as hearing of it, much less seeing someone use it. The technique that I am here to discuss with all of you is something which I dub “SpeedShuffling.”



Put (very) simply, SpeedShuffling relies on one key concept: The moves Whirlwind and Roar are two moves that essentially “force” the opponent to switch Pokemon. What this means is that if they had normal priority they would very easily dominate slow teams, as switching would end the opponent's turn. You with me so far? Now then, the negative priority of both of these moves is simply ignored and treated as +0 when the move is selected by Sleep Talk. If you realize what this means then I can post the whole solution of the puzzle: By using Roar/Whirlwind in tandem with Sleep Talk on a fast Pokemon then it is very possible for the enemy to simply NOT be able to do anything for a turn. Well, not nothing, actually. They will be taking your (well placed) entry hazard damage. This can be potentially devastating to any enemy team, as even with Stealth Rock alone some Pokemon take 25% on switch in and if you add in Spikes or Toxic Spikes you really will have your bases covered, as they say.


My goal with this topic is as follows: Share this battle style option with the community, discuss the optimal ways to use this specific strategy and last, but not least, introduce to you folks an example set or two that I've been thinking about recently. So please, tell me what you think about the strategy and (if you want!) the set which I will post. The set is here merely for the sake of discussion, though if you find it viable you may use it as well!

“Lyn”
Latias @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
Timid Nature
240 HP / 76 Def / 18 Sp. Def / 176 Speed


Roar
Rest
Sleep Talk
Reflect / Dragon Pulse / Mist Ball


There's the example set. Look scary? It should be. The premise is so amazingly simple and yet it is so fearsome. Latias has natural resistances to SO MANY diverse types in Pokemon. Shall we list them off? Fire, Water, Grass, Fighting, Ground, Electric, Psychic. It resists 7 out of the 17 in the game (with an immunity to one of those) making it a very easy switch in on MANY Pokemon. So you're in, now what? Depending on what you switched into they might choose to flee. You then think ahead and use Roar. Boom, you scouted their Pokemon, it took entry damage and they're back at a Pokemon that does NOT want to fight Latias. But what if it has to use an attack? You hit them back with your own attack. Upon taking a powerful hit they're clearly going to flee. So what do you do? Naturally, you roar again. Boom, more entry hazard damage and Lyn (this set's name!) is as healthy as ever. But if you do happen to take a status or lose a lot of HP (you have 80/90/130 defenses, so you're not exactly frail) you simply Rest. The enemy, realizing that he needs to act fast, goes to his prize Pokemon, the one meant to get rid of you. Unfortunately for him, it probably will NOT work out as well as he hopes. You Sleep Talk on the switch, if you Roar that's fantastic but if you Mist Ball or Rest, you get another chance since you outspeed all Poke up to Jolly 100 Base +1 (if you attack them that's still not bad!)! And these chances are all in your favor! And if the going gets tough? Well then you flee to your other Pokemon to handle their counter. You have 5 teammates, use them!

That's really it. But don't stop at Latias, there are SO many Pokemon that you can pull this off with! Raikou, Jolteon, Entei, Ninetales, Zapdos, Tauros, Miltank! All they need to function well is proper EV usage, good entry hazard placement and YOUR brainpower.


So that's SpeedShuffling. I trust that you all will try it out if you have not already and please try to discuss this tactic and your success with it in this topic!


Light's out!

Footnote 1: Erodent brought up a very good point about Assist Shuffling being used in a quite similar fashion to Speed Shuffling. This doesn't work on ShoddyBattle but it works on WiFi and will hopefully work in Shoddy Battle 2. Cheack it out here : http://www.smogon.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2126845&postcount=8

 

[Shizzle]

A long time ago when i didnt know that roar and whirlwind were negative priority moves, i thought it could be fun to Scarf something and SPAM it with entry hazards slowly winning me the battle, glad to see something like this has come up.

I dont see how effective this will be though, largely due to so many scarftrans and Scizors running around, which will no doubt cause trouble to the idea. Ill give the Latias set a shot later on, but i want to see what other people say.

 

[jrrrrrrr]

I think that set would be better off with Reflect as the last option, so that Tyranitar and Scizor don't just instantly kill this set.

And Mist Ball isn't a great move anyways, it only has 70 base power, terrrible Psychic typing that every Latias counter resists, and only 5 PP (8 max). You would be much better with Reflect, that would force more switches and keep you around so that you can Roar more.

Suicune has been a great Rest-Talk-Roarer since GSC, and thats because like Latias, they have the typing and the threat of offense to force switches constantly. It's not a bad option, but it is hard to find a place to put things like this on a team.

 

[Yagami Light]

A long time ago when i didnt know that roar and whirlwind were negative priority moves, i thought it could be fun to Scarf something and SPAM it with entry hazards slowly winning me the battle, glad to see something like this has come up.

I dont see how effective this will be though, largely due to so many scarftrans and Scizors running around, which will no doubt cause trouble to the idea. Ill give the Latias set a shot later on, but i want to see what other people say.

You should be able to surprise the Scarftran on the first switch in by resisting Fire Blast, after that it's pretty much all mindgames.

I think that set would be better off with Reflect as the last option, so that Tyranitar and Scizor don't just instantly kill this set.

And Mist Ball isn't a great move anyways, it only has 70 base power, terrrible Psychic typing that every Latias counter resists, and only 5 PP (8 max). You would be much better with Reflect, that would force more switches and keep you around so that you can Roar more.

Suicune has been a great Rest-Talk-Roarer since GSC, and thats because like Latias, they have the typing and the threat of offense to force switches constantly. It's not a bad option, but it is hard to find a place to put things like this on a team.

Hey jrrrrrr!

Yeah, I wanted to put Reflect in that slot as an option, along with a few other things but I decided to cut it out at the last moment since it looked awkward. I'll re-add it soon. I put Mist Ball simply as a unique option but it is probably an inferior option in the grand scheme of things.

And yeah, the point of this topic is to justify using a slot for this, something which at first may not look to be a sound idea.

Anyway, I'm sleepy so I'll fix this up some more as soon as I wake up. Thanks for the responses so far!

 

[Objection]

I used to have a pokemon on my team with Sleep Talk and Roar. However, this was only so that it could absorb sleep and phaze, neither of which could be done by any other pokemon on my team, and the normal priority phazing that came as a bonus happened very rarely.

 

[Lee]

With regards to speed-shuffling, there was an interesting idea in creative movesets the other week involving using a ResTalker with two phazing moves instead of one in order to increase the chance of the correct move being chosen. I think it was Aerodactyl with Rest/Sleep Talk/Roar/Whirlwind. That way you have a 2/3 chance of 'speedshuffling' rather than a 1/3 chance of doing so. Of course you're giving up your attack move, making you susceptible to Taunt and whatever else, but it's food for thought I guess.

 

[ungulateman]

This is basically the whole point of Crocune (the non-CM version).

I can see many pokemon using it though.

 

[Erodent]

"Assist Shuffling"

(Lee: I think it was my Whirlwindactyl set)

I'm going to point out a strategy similar to "SpeedShuffling" here, but Shoddy hasn't implemented it successfully and thus it only works on Wifi. Both "SpeedShuffling" and "Assist Shuffling" have their pros and cons; people might think the latter sucks because a whole team is devoted to one move, but it's still pretty cool.

The move "Assist" uses a random move from the user's player's party. It can even pick the moves of fainted Pokemon. There are some moves it can't pick, but I'm not going to go into them, as they don't hinder this strategy as all. You have already described the generalities of Whirlwind and Roar and the issues with their priority. Assist works similarly to these pHazing moves under Rest + Sleep Talk conditions; the priority of these moves become standard (+0). "Assist Teams" rely on three things: entry hazards, pHazing moves, and the move Assist itself. But how does it work? Well, put your thinking caps on :P

Let's say the match has started. Essentially, you'll lead with something that can be packed with entry hazards all in one go, like:

Skarmory - [Insert defensive EV spread]
~ Stealth Rock
~ Spikes
~ Whirlwind
~ Roar

Begin by setting up SR -> Spikes. You can use Toxic Spikes, but it's unnecessary. If you feel that Forretress will die too easily, you can have another Pokemon that sets up entry hazards on your team. By this point you might not understand the strategy yet, but let's go on.

Have these team members with you:

Teach them all Whirlwind + Roar. DON'T TEACH THEM ANYTHING ELSE; just these two moves will do. You don't even need EVs on them. Perfect. Do you know what the strategy is by now?

Alright, here's your final member:

Persian @ Choice Scarf - Timid, 252 HP / 252 Spe
~ Assist
~ Roar
~ [Nothing]
~ [Nothing]

Figured it out? If you haven't, well, okay. The basic idea is to Scarf the Persian, putting it at 541 Speed. Then lock into and spam Assist. You should have around 13 moves with you (Assist doesn't count); 11 are moves like Roar and Whirlwind. Statistically, you have an 84% chance of Assist picking either Roar or Whirlwind. These aren't affected by priority, thanks to Assist, so keep using Assist turn by turn, chipping off opponents' health via Spikes and Stealth Rock...keep repeating; they won't be able to do anything if they don't have a priority move to deal with you or if they're slower than you (which is very likely, since not too many Pokemon have more than 541 Speed).

Yeah, call it stupid or irrelevant, but I just wanted to share :P

 

[Snorlaxe]

Sounds cool, Erodent, have you tested it?

 

[Reaver12]

Both of those ideas sound pretty cool. I might make my Zapdos into a RestTalking Roar/Whirlwinder. And on the Persian set.... how the hell does a Rampardos learn Whirlwind?

 

[Amelia]

I can easily spot the one major fault there Erodent, and it's called Priority moves... If that Persian dies to Bullet / Mach Punch or any other Priority stuff, you've instantly lost the game.

 

[Snorlaxe]

Yeah, the Persian thing sounds like an awesome idea, I really want to use it! Do you mind, Light? @_@

 

[Incarnation]

Whoa, the Assist Persian set actually seems really cool.

You could also use some of the non-selectable moves like Counter or Trick to deal with priority users like Scizor, without them hindering your Assist Shuffling

 

[Blue_Tornado]

Hmm, did anyone mention Crobat yet?

Crobat @ something, possibly Leftovers
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Nature: Timid / Jolly
~Whirlwind
~Sleep Talk
~xxxxx
~xxxxx

He can absorb sleep and then use it's super fast Whirlwind for a few turns. Novelty, sure, but it is a speed shuffler.

 

[Incarnation]

Some random thoughts:
-Seeing as Assist can't select Sleep Talk you could actually use these two strategies together as long as you rely on induced Sleep instead of Rest.
-Skarmory can learn SR, Spikes, Roar and Whirlwind so it is ideal as the entry hazard setup pokémon.
-Assist only has 20 PP (32 with PP max), so you're better off using Purugly as a secondary Assist user
-The biggest problem with this set is that you're completely defenseless against the last pokémon without at least one move to finish it off.

Damn, I hope Assist gets fixed on shoddy soon , I really want to try this out

 

[chenman333]

Too bad Persian gets wrecked by Bullet Punch, and Scizor is bound to pop up at some point. Even if you did 252 HP/252 Spe Timid, you take 73% minimum.

And of course the last pokemon thing is an issue. Maybe run TSpikes? Maybe run Explode on Forry? Can assist end up calling up Explosion?

 

[Erodent]

To all curious, I did not test the set personally, but watched a Youtube video of an Assist Team in action. It works, but like someone said up there, the strategy is wrecked by priority moves. Feel free to use it on Wifi; it's not exactly something new. The concept is just special and was discovered by someone during my old days in the Serebii community.

Assist can select Explosion, but this is unreliable at best. Exploding at the wrong time could cost Persian the match. By the way, you're right, Incarnation, Skarmory should be used over Forretress. I changed that; Assist now has an 84% chance of selecting a pHazing move.

 

[Objection]

Toxic spikes wouldn't solve the issue if the opponent has a grounded poison-type, but maybe a combination of Toxic, Will-o-Wisp and Leech Seed might. Are any of those moves unselectable via Assist?

 

[Incarnation]

Quoted from the analysis:

Uses a random move from a random Pokémon in user's party, other than the user and eggs. Can pick moves from a fainted Pokémon. Assist cannot select the following attacks:

• Assist
• Chatter
• Copycat
• Counter
• Covet
• Destiny Bond
• Detect
• Endure
• Feint
• Focus Punch
• Follow Me
• Helping Hand
• Me First
• Metronome
• Mimic
• Mirror Coat
• Mirror Move
• Protect
• Sketch
• Sleep Talk
• Snatch
• Struggle
• Switcheroo
• Thief
• Trick

The bolded moves could be of use when making a team like this:

-Counter and Mirror Coat could be used to deflect a move back to the final pokémon. Seeing as every pokémon bar the Assist user(s) and residual setup pokémon are mostly fodder to gain free switching and carry Roar/Whirlwind, they could easily be adapted to use Counter and/or Mirror Coat
-Destiny Bond is ideal for finishing off the final pokémon
-Focus Punch is the only real attack move that isn't selectable through Assist
-Sleep Talk not being selectable makes it able to use a Speedshuffler combined with the Assistshuffling
-Thief could get rid of opposing Leftovers or scarfs that are faster than persian
-Trick could be used to for example burn a dangerous Scizor or get rid of opposing leftovers.

 

[Erodent]

You do realize that even if you pack one of the moves up there, that the move you wish to be selected has a very low probability of actually being chosen? Unless you're packing more of them, in which case you'll lower the chances of picking a pHazing move, that one last move won't help at all (rarely will it be chosen).

Also, why are you bolding stuff from that list? The moves on that list cannot be chosen by Assist.

 

[HSA]

It seems like a cool idea , the assist persian set. I would try it out if it weren`t
for the last pokemon, coming in,standing,still,and winning at ease.

 

[Incarnation]

You do realize that even if you pack one of the moves up there, that the move you wish to be selected has a very low probability of actually being chosen? Unless you're packing more of them, in which case you'll lower the chances of picking a pHazing move, that one last move won't help at all (rarely will it be chosen).

Also, why are you bolding stuff from that list? The moves on that list cannot be chosen by Assist.

That's exactly my point. You want Persian to keep using Phasing moves without stop. You could put a fire blast somewhere in there and pray it hits scizor, but that's not very likely. In the same way you could accidentially use fire blast through persian on your opponent's heatran who then OHKOs your persian, making your team useless.

These moves could be put on the pokémon other than persian, and these pokémon could be used to form some sort of buffer for threats like scizor that could ruin persian. For example, let's say you succesfully got your spikes and SR up and are phasing with persian, but then Scizor switches in. You switch to your snorlax and absorb the bullet punch, and counter the second bullet punch, KOing Scizor. Now you can simply let Snorlax die and switch in Persian again to continue your Assistshuffling, now without the threat of Scizor lurking around.

This way you could also use destiny bond to finish off the final pokémon without the danger of accidentially killing Persian.

 

[Riverside]

With regards to speed-shuffling, there was an interesting idea in creative movesets the other week involving using a ResTalker with two phazing moves instead of one in order to increase the chance of the correct move being chosen. I think it was Aerodactyl with Rest/Sleep Talk/Roar/Whirlwind. That way you have a 2/3 chance of 'speedshuffling' rather than a 1/3 chance of doing so. Of course you're giving up your attack move, making you susceptible to Taunt and whatever else, but it's food for thought I guess.

With Aero's speed it's hard to think it will be taunt'd.

Seems like an OK strategy. It's a bit gimmicky, but Togekiss/Jirachi praying for flinchhax also is.

I want to see a SpeedShuffling Lugia in Ubers, it has a very nice speed and natural bulky, with 90 base spc atk/atk it won't hurt to have no attacking move. (It learns WW and Roar)

 

[capefeather]

Togekiss/Jirachi doesn't "pray for flinch hax". The flinching is a nice bonus that happens to be likely to happen.

You don't even need EVs on them.

Not even defensive EVs? O_O
(lol I know what you mean, I kid)

 

[Riverside]

The odds of the flinchax and using roar/ww with sleep talk are similar.

The bonus should be the entry hazards.

I already tested it. It's ok but needs a lot of support. Once you have sleep'd by 2 turns you need a way to sleep away without getting killed, at last with aerodactyl.

Focus sash helps with that task, but it only works once.

Also, it needs at least 2 kind of entry hazards, SR alone it's not enough.