Team Frozen Tundra

[chaos 9]

Team Frozen Tundra
Don't post yet plz

​

Intro:
Disclaimer: This is VERY long. If you don't enjoy long rmt's, skim it, but don't jump to conclutions about the team until you have read the whole thing. Thank you.

So this team is very potent at what it does. What does it do? It's a hail team.

You may notice that most of the team is acutally not immune to hail. This is actually helpful, as I did not limit myself to using ice types and thus I could create a more balanced and effective team.

Hail teams are very effective in the current metagame despite having some highly used counters. mien. inspired me to make this team after I battled his very solid hail team. I could find no way through and only managed to win through hax, which I regret. As most hail teams are, this team is built around Walrein, a highly effective hail staller. Most of you probably know him as being able to stall for 32 turns. The main purpose of the team is to set up toxic spikes and hail to allow walrein to outstall anything and everything (well most things) and eventually win the match.

I am also using Zeta/Malachi's RMT format as people loved it. So credits to this thread for the format for this RMT. http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=49703

Closer Look :

Abomasnow @ Leftovers *** Yeti
Ability: Snow Warning
EVs: 252 HP/76 Spd/84 SAtk/96 SDef
Sassy nature (+SDef, -Spd)
- Substitute
- Blizzard
- Leech Seed
- Focus Punch

Abomasnow is the obvious choice to lead a hail team, but it also does well in the current metagame as a lead. Hail negates all focus sashes as I have not seen 1 ice type run a sash in all my battling days.

Subseeding is a great stratagy in general and focus punch allows me to take on Blissey all day. Blizzard for powerful STAB and it can also 2hko skarmory with these evs.

While on the topic of evs, this set allows for me to outspeed hippowdon, while being slower than tyranitar. This is essential because while I can take down hippowdon, I need the hail to be set up against tyranitar. I can then switch to my tyranitar counter later.

Abomasnow is named after what it is, a snow yeti.

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Walrein @ Leftovers *** 32
Ability: Ice Body
EVs: 220 HP/244 Def/46 Spd
Bold nature (+Def, -Atk)
- Substitute
- Blizzard
- Roar
- Protect

The star of the team comes second XD. This beast is the meaning of stall and is exculsively used in stall teams. This is a staple in 99% of hail teams and for good reason.

Dragontamer made a whole thread on why this thing is dominant and it has many calculations against many of the large metagame threats. That thread is located here http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=28213.

The evs are key to the success of the set. This set is not 2hkoed by gyrados, and is still walled with 1 DD. It cannot Ohko until it has 3 DDs. It is also not ohkoed 100% of the time by mixape close combat after rocks damage either. Roar allows for phazing of walls that cannot be outstalled by toxic/hail damage. The only things that wall this 100% are roost scizor, tyranitar (by killing hail, but it does not enjoy stab blizzard or toxic from toxic spikes) and articuno (lol). On a side note, this is also a beast counter to salamence.

Named after its ability to stall for 32 turns. Go Stallrein!

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Tentacruel @ Leftovers *** Crippling Poison
Ability: Liquid Ooze
EVs: 204 HP/36 Spd/96 SAtk/172 SDef
Calm nature (+SDef, -Atk)
- Surf
- Ice Beam
- Rapid Spin
- Toxic Spikes

Tentacruel is a key member of the team, especially in supporting walrein. Its main weapon? Toxic spikes. They are nearly essential to anyone employing stallrein and tentacruel lays them down with style, not to mention countering mixape, a feat not many pokes can boast.

The evs allow tentacruel to tank and do its job to the utmost and the special attack evs allow it to pack more of a punch against grounds and other things weak to its attacks.

Rapid spin is very helpful in ridding my team of those horrible stealth rocks and other entry hazards. Surf is reliable STAB while ice beam hits grasses and dragons for solid damage. Toxic spikes are obviously the key to the set as without them, I have a harder time winning battles or stalling with stallrein.

Named after the deadly poison it lays down with toxic spikes.​

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Rotom-f @ Choice Scarf *** -460
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 4 HP/252 Spd/252 SAtk
Modest nature (+SAtk, -Atk)
- Blizzard
- Thunderbolt
- Hidden Power [Fighting]
- Trick

Before I begin, let me say that this sprite it the bomb. Moving on, rotom deserves to be on most OU teams solely because of his ability to fill many niches and counter very potent threats such as lucario and scizor. This set takes advantage of a 100% accurate blizzard and trick, two very broken moves. It also serves as my anti spinner, as my team is very reliant on entry hazards.

The evs are quite boring on this set and I would be open to changes on them if anyone can come up with better evs. Modest nature gives this some pop and with scarf can acually do some sweeping with its powerful thunderbolt.

Thunderbolt is a solid STAB option, while blizzard takes advantage of the hail and dents anything weak to it. These two attacks also form a pseudo boltbeam combo, with a stronger beam. Hidden power fighting makes sure that rotom is not completely destroyed by tyranitar, as it can 2hko, so if tyranitar switches in on it, it dies. Trick can dump the scarf on a stat-upper or wall to effectively remove them from the game.

Named after the absolute zero point on the fahrenheit scale. -460 is actually .33 degrees below absolute zero which is so cold that it's physically impossible.

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Skarmory @ Leftovers *** Titanic
Ability: Keen Eye
EVs: 252 HP/96 Atk/156 Def/4 Spd
Impish nature (+Def, -SAtk)
- Brave Bird
- Whirlwind
- Spikes
- Roost

Skarmory is the spiking bird that has been on top for 3 generations. This guy protects me from most rock attacks (minus some CB tar stone edges) and sets up entry hazards to aid an eventual sweep or stall out.

The evs allow skarmory to tank to maximum effect and get down as many layers of spikes as possible. The attack evs allow skarmory to actually hit things with a powerful STAB boosted brave bird.

Brave bird is a standard stab move on the metal bird, and spikes are a very helpful hazard. Whirlwind is also a standard on skarmory, and gives me more phazing to utilize my numerous entry hazards. Roost is for self healing and allows skarmory to stick around and sponge hits and set up spikes for a long time.

Named after its metal hide and the notion that the titanic was "unsinkable" just like skarmory.

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Swampert @ Leftovers *** Sea
Ability: Torrent
EVs: 240 HP/216 Def/52 SAtk
Relaxed nature (+Def, -Spd)
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Surf
- Ice Beam

Swampert, the monster mud-fish, is a great choice for a hail team. He counters hail team's worst enemy, tyranitar, very well and is an all around beast of a tank. Swampert also completes the trifecta of entry hazards by bringing stealth rocks the the table at last.

This is mixpert, and the evs reflect that. The hp and defense allow it to tank hits from tyranitar and fire back super effective earthquakes. The special attack evs allow for me to employ surf and ice beam in order to have access to more powerful water and ice attack options. The relaxed nature also bolsters my defense to allow for more hit tanking.

The moves are magic with mixpert. Stealth rock is the most broken move in the game next to trick and is employed very effectively by swampert, as he will find himself with a lot of free turns after forcing out tyranitar. Ice beam is a good dragon eater as it ohkos all of the dragons. Surf and earthquake are both STAB options, surf takes bulky grounds and fires while earthquake eats rocks (tyranitar) and anything weak to it alive.

Swampert is named after the ocean because he is a great water type and his tanking seems to go on forever.

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Conclusion:
This team is somewhat slow and is "hindered" by its own hail, but is still effective at setting up walrein for his staweep (stall sweep) and wearing things down with residual damage.

Team Edits:

 

[chaos 9]

This threat list really helped me in preping my hail team as well. Thanks a lot for doing this Zeta! I love the threat list and it really helped in figuring out what I needed to counter and what could do the job well.
Comprehensive threat list and
counters:

Abomasnow: Scizor and Metagross.

Azelf: Scizor, Spiritomb, Tyranitar, Blissey, Cresselia and Houndoom.

Blissey: Machamp, Dugtrio, almost anything physical and faster and with the capability to kill her without taking much in return.

Breloom Zapdos. ResTalk Rotom-h.

Dugtrio: Slowbro, Suicune - general BulkyWaters or anything that can take an Earthquake.

Suicune: Blissey can take non-rest Suicunes with the combination of Toxic + Seismic toss. BulkyWaters which can take Surf work also.

Salamence: Hippowdon, Porygon2

Raikou: Blissey and Dugtrio.

Kingdra: Empoleon, Slowbro.

Zapdos: Blissey, Tyranitar, Cresselia, Swampert, Hippowdon

Tyranitar: Bronzong, Hippowdon

Heatran: Porygon2, Cresselia, Tyranitar, Blissey, BulkyWater.

Rhyperior: Suicune, Celebi, Breloom, Torterra, Rotom-W

Scizor: Heatran, Zapdos, Rotom-h

Mamoswine: Bronzong, Rotom-h, Scizor, Vaporeon / BulkyWater, Suicune, Slowbro

Lucario: Scizor, Rotom-H, Slowbro, Hippowdon

Rotom (all formes) Blissey (non-trick variants), T-Tar, Cresselia, Scizor (non-Will-O-Wisp)

Gengar: Scizor, Blissey, Tyranitar

Celebi: Heatran, Scizor, Rotom-h, Houndoom, Weavile

Slowbro: Scizor

Yanmega: Heatran, Blissey, Rotom, Mamoswine, Zapdos

Magnezone: Scizor, Dugtrio, Blissey

Starmie: Scizor, Blissey

Gyarados: Zapdos, [Bulky water with Hidden Power [Electric] / Grass Knot], Rotom formes

Heracross: Zapdos, Rotom-h

Cresselia: Scizor, Tyranitar, Weavile, Houndoom

BulkyWater: Zapdos, Blissey

Machamp: Slowbro, Gliscor

Togekiss: Blissey, Rotom, Bronzong

Porygon-Z Blissey, Bronzong

Jolteon: Blissey, Bronzong, Porygon2, Dugtrio

Swampert: Grass / Grass knot, Celebi

Metagross: Hippowdon, Rotom-h, Zapdos (to an extent), Swampert

Flygon: Hippowdon

Jirachi: Heatran, Hippowdon, Blissey

Skarmory: Rotom forme, Zapdos

Forretress: Zapdos, Heatran, Rotom

Blissey: Machamp, Dugtrio, Rhyperior / physical attackers

Hippowdon: Grass Knot / Celebi, Bulkywater

Aerodactyl: Hippowdon, Slowbro, bulkywater

Gliscor: BulkyWater, Slowbro

Snorlax: Machamp, Rhyperior

Infernape: Cresselia, BulkyWater


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Walrein is a stalling beast when set up properly. So dangerous, that without toxic damage, he can outstall 2 pokes if they lack recovery and hail immunity. The key is setting it up properly. This threat list helped me figure out ways to set up walrein effectively.
Walrein Threat List and Counters:

Tyranitar: Swampert, Skarmory (non stone edge or Fire attack) Tentacruel (non eq or band) Rotom (check/lure)

Scizor: Skarmory, Rotom, Residual damage.

Articuno: Stealth Rocks, Skarmory (whirlwind), Rotom

Heracross: Rotom (non dark attack), Skarmory (non band)

Other steels: Skarmory, Swampert, Tentacruel (lacking ground move)


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Team Building:
I did this format in a kind of backwards order I know, as i used my team as the counters to walreins counters.

So I went looking for things that aid Walrein. I know I needed Abomasnow to set up hail, and walrein as he was the core pokemon. So so far I have

Abomasnow
Walrein

I know I want the stallrein set, so I found Dragontamer's thread on stallrein and got the set. I picked from the slashes and ended up with this:

Walrein @ leftovers
220 hp 244 def 46 spd
Bold
Blizzard
Substitute
Protect
Roar

This gave me a solid core pokemon to build my hail stall around. For abomasnow's set, I wanted a set that can come in many times to renew the hail if need be. I also looked at the hail stall thread and it said the best speed stat was one that outsped hippowdon but undersped tyranitar in order to set up hail most effectively as a lead. With all this in mind, I chose the sub seed set:

Abomasnow @ leftovers
252 hp 76 spd 84 sp. atk 96 sp. def
Sassy
Leech seed
Substitute
Focus punch
Blizzard

This set can come in a lot to renew hail because it has recovery in leech seed and is very bulky. It can also take on blissey if need be with subseed and focus punch. Focus punch also ohkos tyranitar that switches in on my sub to ruin my subseed and my hail. Blizzard with STAB and 100% accuracy is always good and can 2hko skarmory.

Now with

and

there were major type weaknesses that they shared. I needed to start filling the holes that their common ice typing left. I also wanted: (in order of importance)

-Toxic spikes
-A spin blocker
-A tyranitar counter
-A mixape counter
-A scizor counter
-Stealth rocks
-Spikes
-A spinner
-A steel
-A bulky water


now that is a lot to ask for out of 4 slots, but I think I managed it pretty well.

I went after toxic spikes first, as they are the most important aspect in supporting stallreins that do not run toxic. The list of toxic spikers was fairly small, only Drapion, Forretress, Tentacruel and Roserade ever see any use.
I ruled out Roserade right off the bat as it was too frail for a stall team and is injured by hail beyond repair.

Drapion went next, as it is not useful for any other role that I wanted besides toxic spiking, and with my limited slots, all my pokemon had to fill at least 2 roles.

I finally chose Tentacruel over Forretress because I felt it fit better in a hail team than forry and it satisfied a greater number of more important roles than forretress.

I chose the standard set,

Tentacruel @ leftovers
204 hp 36 spd 96 sp. atk 172 sp. def
Calm
Surf
Ice beam
Rapid spin
Toxic Spikes

Roles it fills: Toxic spiker, spinner, mixape counter, bulky water (to an extent).

Roles still needed:
-A spin blocker
-A tyranitar counter
-A scizor counter
-Stealth rocks
-Spikes
-A steel
-A bulky water (kind of)

Recap

Next, I went for spin blocker. This could be filled by any ghost type whatsoever, so this took more thought. I ruled out frail ghosts, as this is a stall team, and that brought me to: rotom forms, spiritomb, dusknoir and banette. Banette went first as it fills only one role well.

Next went Dusknoir, as it is in the same boat as Banette.

Rotom form finally beat out spirtomb because it can abuse blizzard and help fix my speed issuse as well as countering scizor to an extent.

So I went with the scarf rotom-f set:

Rotom-f @ choice scarf
252 spd 252 sp. atk 4 hp
Modest
Blizzard
Thunderbolt
Hidden Power [Fighting]
Trick

Roles it fills:
-spin blocker
-scizor counter (kind of)
Misc: fixes speed problem.

Roles still needed:
-A tyranitar counter
-A scizor counter (kind of)
-Stealth rocks
-Spikes
-A steel
-A bulky water (kind of)

Next I went after a tyranitar counter. I needed this bulky water to fill at least 3 of the remaining roles, so most of the offensive ones were cut.

Swampert was the obvious choice being able to counter tyranitar, give me a bulky water, and lay down stealth rocks.

Roles it fills:
-Bulky water
-Stealth rocks
-Tyranitar counter

Roles still needed:
-A scizor counter
-spikes
-A steel

Recap

Finally, with one spot needing to fill 3 roles the choice was quite clear. Only skarmory could lay down spikes as well as counter scizor. The choice went to Skarmory and the team was complete with

Final team

-I have all my roles filled
-Nothing rips right through my team (minus the rare sub hp grass heatran)
-I have not too many ice types
-I have a steel

Thanks for reading

Threat list coming next

 

[ABC-Trainer]

i like the pichu

 

[Madd Cribbage]

The team seems good at what it does, but taunt really messes you up seeing as how you only have one real strong attacking force. Other than that you have counter for most things that run rampant through hail teams. Good job!

Also I just wanted to point out the obvious that your name for Walrein is even more awesome because 32 is also the freezing point of water :P

 

[Sebastien Loeb]

Don't you think about being too much weak to Machamp with that teams? And I would lift more slightly the Special Attack of Tentacruel.

 

[Slapjax]

Nice team. I would probably put shed shell on skarmory though, seeing as with scizor being so poular there are a ton of magnezones running around. After skarm goes down any sort of an outrage or dracometeor will do a lot of damage. I know that swampert can switch in, but over time it'll hurt. Also, i know that the fridge rotom benifits from bolt+ blizzard, but the oven is a far better anti spinner. it defeats 100 percent of all rapid spinners with shadowball, tbolt, overheat, and will-o-wisp. Either way, they're both crushed by cbtar pursuit, so watch out for that. Mixmence with brick break/draco meteor/ fire blast/ outrage kills you. All in all, this team is very solid. As long as your opponent doesn't do too much trapping you're fine. I would just beware of the domino effect that losing one of your important walls might have.

Haha, minor nitpick here, but i'm suprised you haven't seen a sashed weavile. No big deal though.

 

[Legacy Raider]

Hey Chaos. Well, this is one of the best hail teams I've seen in a very long time. You have most everything covered already, so my suggestions are going to be about small things, nothing controversial.

The EV spread you are using on your Abomsnow is designed to let it outrun Swampert to hit it with Wood Hammer. Since you aren't running it, I would consider changing the EV spread to 252 HP, 40 SpA, 216 SpD. I find it more useful to have Abomsnow slower than Hippowdon since the slower pokemon gets to keep the weather, and I prefer having a 100% accurate Blizzard to hit Hippowdon with rather than outspeeding and hitting with a 70% accurate one, just to kill him before he can set up rocks (which you can spin away later). Give Abomasnow a Spe IV of 0 to ensure it is slower than Hippowdon, and it minimizes the damage Bronzong will do to you with Gyro Ball. This EV spread lets Abomasnow get the last extra point in SpD, and the rest goes into SpA to boost his Blizzard. This spread also makes an excellent special tanking, walling the movesets of almost all water types, whose attacks will generally fail to break Aboma's subs.

On Tentacruel, replace Ice Beam with Blizzard, as the hail will guarantee you the accuracy and it is overall a generally more powerful attack. This also means that you can move the SpA EVs into SpD, to make Tentacruel a more reliable special wall. The spread I use on hail teams is 252 HP, 216 SpD, 40 Spe. It once again nets you the final SpD free point, as well as putting Tentacruel's speed at 246, 1 point higher than things like Celebi that try to hit 245 to outspeed Jolly Tyranitar. The other bonus of the extra SpD is that ScarfTran's Earth Power becomes a 3HKO, even with Hail canceling out your Leftovers.

Overall, a Zapdos with Thunderbolt, Heat Wave and HP Grass will give your team a lot of trouble. The only pokemon that can really withstand it is your Rotom, and you are currently running a very frail spread on it. I've been messing around with the EVs and I've come up with this: 120 HP, 164 SpA, 224 Spe. The HP EVs mean that you take less than half your health damage from a Timid LO Zapdos' Heat Wave on average. The SpA lets you hit said Zapdos for a minimum of 71%, an OHKO with SR + hail. The speed EVs generate 396 Speed, allowing you to outrun +ve natured base 130s. Also, I don't think HP Fighting is the best choice of move in that third slot. Personally, since you have excellent BoltBeam coverage, I would put Will-O-Wisp there. It serves 2 real purposes: firstly, to cripple threatening physical attackers, allowing your team to deal with them a lot easier - Lucario isn't all that scary when he's dealing a maximum of 29% to your Swampert with Close Combat. Secondly, it serves as a way for you to get residual damage on things that are immune to Toxic Spikes. Pokemon such as Scizor, Lucario, Zapdos, Gyarados, Salamence to name but a few can be very annoying to a StallRein when all you have to take them out with is the hail. WoW saves a lot of Sub and Protect PP too.

You may have been able to tell already, but I'm a big fan of the bonus point. On your Skarmory I would suggest a spread of 252 HP, 76 Atk, 176 Def, 4 Spe. It gives you the almighty extra point in Defense, as well as making Skarmory physically bulkier in general (this is very important when you realise that the spread in the analysis wasn't really designed to work in Hail, where your Leftovers are being cancelled out). A 76 Atk Brave Bird still manages plenty of damage on the things it needs to, with the hail damage more than making up for the loss of 5 Atk points.

On Swampert, run Blizzard over Ice Beam. You should really be using Hail's 100% Blizzard on every pokemon that you want to run an Ice Beam on, as in general Blizzard hits for around 26% more damage than Ice Beam would.

That's really all I can suggest for your team. Like I said, it's definitely one of the best hail teams I've seen in a while. I wish you best of luck with it =).

LR.

 

[Bogmire]

just use a plain 252 hp/252 def/6 speed spread on Skarmory. There's no need for arbitrary attack EVs that detract from its defensive capabilities.

 

[chaos 9]

Thanks for posting I can't edit the first post to take out the dont post thing for some reason. I also cannot remove the bad sprite so just ignore it for now until me/a mod can get here and edit the post.

Thanks for all the rates guys!
Legacy thanks for the rate and I think I will take your advice on most things, but I don't like the idea of blizzard over ice beam on tentacruel. I know I will probably have hail, but I don't want to become reliant on hail to the point where without it I lose. I like your spreads as well, but since I cannot edit the post, consider them made until I can edit them in.

Keep them coming guys!

 

[Legacy Raider]

Upon further testing, an annoyance with this team is that you lack a reliable status absorber, and the Rotom set you are currently using dies far too quickly. Rotom is essential to this team as it keeps many threats in check, most notably Lucario, Scizor and offensive Zapdos. With no Leftovers and minimum HP investment, the hail and damage in general wears it out extremely quickly. You have no Wish support on this team, so I strongly recommend you make Rotom a ResTalker (thanks to august for the idea).

I would keep Thunderbolt, Will-O-Wisp, Rest, Sleep Talk, as although you lose out on your BoltBeam coverage, I have found that WoW is a great asset and will help you out a lot more than Blizzard will. If you are worried that without a scarfed Rotom, you will become more susceptible to Trick, then you always have Tentacruel. He makes a good scarf taker as generally he won't be staying in for long, and he will usually only be using one move while he's there.

Just some suggestions.

LR.

 

[gec]

If you are worried that without a scarfed Rotom, you will become more susceptible to Trick, then you always have Tentacruel. He makes a good scarf taker as generally he won't be staying in for long, and he will usually only be using one move while he's there.

This line made me realize that your Tentacruel is holding Leftovers. Black Sludge is great as you still get your recovery but the Pokemon who uses Trick on your Tentacruel gets left with it, so that's worth consideration if you take LR's advice.

 

[Astamatitos]

If your opponent tricks Tentacruel then he in return, obtains a great tool in the form of Black Sludge, as well as an opportunity to ruin another Pokemon of yours in exchange of 6.5% of his HP. Chaos9 will then have to constantly predict the Black Sludge Trick in order to bring Tenta back, which kinda contradicts the whole point of giving Tentacruel Black Sludge over Leftovers.

 

[chaos 9]

Thank you Asta. That is exactly what I was thinking. Also thanks LR for the suggestions so far. Good luck on becoming a tutor as well!