DPP OU The Dark Passenger: Undefeated in Worldcup Play

[Scofield]

My Dark Passenger is what I call the feeling that compels me to play pokemon, always prodding and poking and beckoning to me to let it into the driver's seat....




This is the team I used during the world cup, playing for USA West as we made it into the semi-finals, and I ended up going 4-0 in the tournament.

Before I start, a quick story about how this team came to be (note that parts of this story may be exaggerated or embellished for dramatic effect):

Shortly after being selected to Team USA West, I was debating whether or not to make a new team, or use one of my current, non-spectacular but solid teams. Ever since the Smogon Tournament #5, I have been unable to make a "groundbreaking" team; I guess you can say I was stuck in a rut. Then it was time for my finals and graduation and I didn't think about Pokemon for a couple of weeks. The night after my last graduation celebration, I get on irc to talk to the rest of the team. Philip7086 informs me that he has completed his wcup team and asks for a battle to test it. I oblige, and what followed next astounded me. Phil was able to complete a team that utilized just about all of my favorite pokemon, using them all in conjunction, with perfect synergy, and in ways I never even thought of. Needless to say, it was groundbreaking, and I was jealous. At that moment I decided to make a new team that would be legen-dary. What proceeded was me pretty much locking myself in a room working on this in a Beautiful Mind-esque sequence as I constructed this team and didn't sleep.

We will be approaching this team Benjamin Button style (ie in reverse, starting with the finisher and ending with the lead) since that is how I built the team. The first 3 pokemon came to me at about the same time and the last 3 came to me at about the same time, so the order I decided on these might be only a few seconds apart.




The Bastard (Salamence) (F) @ Life Orb
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 6 HP/252 Atk/252 Spd
Jolly nature (+Spd, -SAtk)
- Outrage
- Earthquake
- Dragon Dance
- Roost

I started this team out, as I start out many teams, by asking myself one question: What is the most dangerous pokemon in the game? And, as quite often happens, Salamence comes to mind, so all I had to do was choose a set. After immersing myself in mixmence for a long while, I realized 2 things: Mence can easily cause switches to take advantage of a chance to roost, and I wish he had a stat upping move for things like vaporeon that try to stall out mixmence. Then it hit me: Mence did have a stat upping move, in the awesome dragon dance. knowing mence's awesome typing would allow me to easily set up against some choiced users, and that being able to roost and set up against things like some vaporeon and celebi, I decided that I needed roost, which mixmence taught me was very viable. Nature wise, I pretty much had to have jolly to sweep past things that try to outspeed me, like scarf jirachi and flygon. Item-wise, I realized the reason I had never made a great ddmence team before was because I was using it wrong. Using LO allows mence to hit incredibly hard, after a dd it hits with 1.95x as much power as unboosted, any item cannot possibly top that, not even lum or yache berry which can net me a boost of 2x. The way I play this guy is to just hold him off til late game, then try to sweep with just LO outrages and roost, if I ever get in a dd that should just be an automatic win button.




Dark Passenger (Gengar) (F) @ Life Orb
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 6 HP/252 Spd/252 SAtk
Timid nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Shadow Ball
- Focus Blast
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Protect

I decided I needed a sweeping partner for Salamence. I also needed to start thinking about eliminating Mence's counters. The first Mence check that came to mind was Scizor, so I needed a surefire way to beat it. Enter Mystic Gengar with thanks to Blue Kirby and Aldaron. Gengar is my favorite pokemon of all time. Protect (as opposed to sub) allows me to always beat scizor (well not SD scizor) as well as hit hard as fuck (I can ohko salamence after SR with shadow ball). I wanted something with speed and the ability to hit hard immediately, since Salamence was the set-up sweeper. Other options were Latias or Starmie. I never even seriously considered the other options to be honest, as Gengar will absolutely bait scizor into either bullet punch or pursuit and not u-turn allowing me to HP Fire or switch. Again, my favorite fucking pokemon ever. As a bonus, this guy acts as a decent luke check with focus blast ohkoing 70% of the time and HP fire doing 70% or ohkoing after a defense drop.






Balls of Steel (Magnezone) @ Leftovers
Ability: Magnet Pull
EVs: 42 HP/216 Spd/252 SAtk
Naive nature (+Spd, -SDef)
- Thunderbolt
- Hidden Power [Grass]
- Substitute
- Explosion

The absolute key to the team. If zone does his job, I will not lose. So, what happens when scizor uses bullet punch and not pursuit? I switch to magnezone for the steel trap. So, now I can eliminate scizor and almost all steels for salamence, allowing mence to run roost. But that just isn't good enough, how am I also supposed to open up a sweep for gengar? The only pokemon that can really wall gengar is blissey, and if it also has to wall zone, it wouldn't be alive when gengar comes out to play. No one expects explosion from behind a sub, making zone the perfect blissey lure. What if skarmory has shed shell? No problem, if I know it's going to switch out, I can just sub on the switch and proceed to attack while behind a sub. Once blissey is gone, Gengar can start damaging things (such as those shed shell steels), clearing the way for a salamence sweep. Thunderbolt over discharge, since without modest, discharge is too weak. HP grass to kill pert who can beat salamence 1 on 1 (barely). Nature and spread is to outspeed all scizor, acting as a 70% scizor check. As a bonus, I can trap those annoying scarfrachi's which can beat salamence. Best case scenario, this guy traps a steel and kills it, gets behind a sub in the meanwhile and hits something else like heatran, swampert or infernape hard, or explodes and kills blissey. This guy will get 2 kills on a good day.

So, I had my core of Salamence/Gengar/Magnezone, now how can I best support this? Well, I had a way to eliminate blissey and her icky status, scizor and his revenging, trap and kill all strong steels, but I now needed to start thinking defensively. I can have nothing else that can lure scizor, meanwhile additional salamence/gengar support would still be appreciated. These next 3 pokemon came to me as a group as well.





Boy Blue (Vaporeon) (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Water Absorb
EVs: 188 HP/252 Def/70 Spd
Bold nature (+Def, -Atk)
- Wish
- Protect
- Surf
- Hidden Power [Electric]

The second answer to my question of "what is the most dangerous pokemon in the game?" is often gyarados. However, unlike salamence, gyarados can have some hard counters. For this reason, I often find myself using vaporeon quite often, who also counters infernape, who is in the top 5 on my list. Vaporeon plays as the defensive anchor of the team, countering key threats, such as eliminating gyarados who's intimidate can ruin my mence sweep and taking out heatran or infernape who can threaten zone. Wish allows me to heal other teammates, even allowing gengar to often get a second chance at a sweep. For anyone who asks, the speed is to outspeed most scizors and skarmory, allowing me to do some damage or wish on the u-turn. She's a girl despite the name for people who use attract, with males being the more common gender as it's the default.





Iron Man VI (Scizor) (F) @ Choice Band
Ability: Technician
EVs: 198 HP/252 Atk/60 Spd
Adamant nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Bullet Punch
- U-turn
- Superpower
- Pursuit

The definition of a bulky pokemon, and for a pokemon ranked #1 in usage, I have no idea how I didn't use him before this. Since I run hp fire on my gengar, I lose my chance to tie with opposing gengar, meaning I needed a solid switch in to the dark passenger. Also allows me to trap latias, who can threaten my salamence sweep if it has a scarf or if I can't find a chance to dd up with mence. Also acts as my salamence check thanks to bullet punch. Lastly, scizor works as my initial physical switch in to blissey in case bliss gets in on gengar before zone has had a chance to explode on it. Despite all this, I most often just spam u-turns. It surprises me that most people don't know how to use scizor properly, I do not bring out scizor early game to bullet punch, in fear of magnezone. I use scizor to revenge things like swampert at 40%. Since the opponent will usually switch at that point, I can either discourage switching or gain the advantage on a switch. EV'd to always survive a celebi hp fire after SR, with the rest in speed, conveniently just enough to outspeed most skarmory. I wish I could up the speed to outspeed vaporeon, but I just can't.





BBQ Time (Heatran) (F) @ Choice Scarf/Shucca Berry
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 6 Atk/252 Spd/252 SAtk
Naive nature (+Spd, -SDef)
- Explosion
- Earth Power
- Fire Blast
- Stealth Rock

And we finish at the start. After looking over the team, I needed a few things with only one slot available: A stealth rocker, a lead, and something that can switch into rotom and electricity in general. Synergy wise, heatran was the only pokemon that really made sense. I started out with heatran, who worked great, but it left me very vulnerable to specs jolteon, who can easily come in on vaporeon. I tested many other leads: gliscor, celebi, even camerupt, but none of them really fit that well, even costing me some sleep. It was then that phil suggested to me to just add a scarf to heatran. After testing this, it worked out great. Yeah, jolteon or rotom can switch in on vaporeon, but then I can just go to heatran, always outspeed and kill it. This works great since heatran does not get worn down by electric attacks, since vaporeon can wish on the switch, heatran can continually switch in and receive the wish, healing itself. The scarf also lets me check lucario again, so the opponent never knows whether to crunch or close combat, as I can go to either gengar or heatran, and another check to latias, who can set up on vaporeon, in case scizor gets trapped early. If I don't feel like jolteon will be too much of a threat, I sometimes go with shucca berry for cute effects, always allowing me to get up SR, ohko scarftran while taking an earth power and 2hko hippo with fire blast while taking an earthquake.

Just to quickly sum it up: This team is in my natural style of bulky balanced offense. My pokemon support each other by opening up holes for their comrades. For example, magnezone will trap and kill skarmory for a salamence sweep. Or if it has shed shell, that zone will explode on blissey who come in, allowing gengar to kill skarmory, and then allowing mence to sweep. This team takes a metagame trend in the abundance of steel types and turns it into an advantage. The second I see a steel type (granted, not all of them), I can use that opportunity to take momentum in the game.

And a special thank you to team US WEST, you guys were amazing, we all had a lot of fun.

 

[Scofield]

THREAT LIST (STOLEN STRAIGHT FROM PHIL'S THREAD WHERE HE STOLE IT FROM JABBA'S THREAD WHERE HE STOLE IT FROM KG'S!)

Sorry, couldn't get the sprites to work =(

Defensive Threats:

Blissey - Scizor is my initial switch in, I'm just very careful of flamethrower. Other than that it usually falls for my bait zone or ends up a victim of the mence sweep.

Bronzong - Everyone on the team can pretty much handle it.

Celebi - Heatran or scizor.

Cresselia - Scizor.

Forretress - Heatran or zone.

Gliscor - Vaporeon.

Gyarados - Vaporeon.

Hippowdon - Vaporeon.

Jirachi - Heatran or zone, just be careful of twave.

Rotom-A - Always a pain, heatran is my main counter.

Skarmory - Heatran or zone.

Snorlax - Scizor.

Suicune - Can be a pain, it has a tough time setting up though. If I have to, I switch to magnezone who usuallu outspeed and 2hko's with tbolt + explosion.

Swampert - Vaporeon, my entire team can handle it pretty well though.

Tyranitar - Scizor.

Vaporeon - Magnezone, although surf can hurt. Usually ends up as set up bait for mence.

Zapdos - Can be tough, I usually just go to heatran to force it out.


Offensive Threats:

Azelf - Heatran handles azelf pretty well.

Breloom - I don't have a sleep absorber and it can be a pain if it gets in on vappy. Most of my team can handle it pretty well and it can't do much to gengar.

Gengar- Scizor.

Gyarados - Vaporeon.

Heatran - Vaporeon.

Infernape - Vaporeon. Gengar can revenge it.

Jolteon - Can be a pain, but heatran can handle it.

Latias - Scizor.

Kingdra - Scizor actually handles it pretty well if it's at decent health.

Lucario- Gengar, heatran, scizor and bullet punch keep it from being too much of a threat.

Machamp - Uhh, I just hit it with whatever is in, is a pain to any team but not too much of a threat.

Magnezone - Heatran can handle it ok.

Mamoswine - Vaporeon and scizor, just look out for earthquake.

Metagross - I use vaporeon as it can handle even thunderpunch rather well.

Salamence - Um, I just rely on revenging it with scizor.

Scizor - Heatran and zone.

Starmie - Can be a pain, vaporeon or scizor can usually handle it though.

Tyranitar - Scizor, just be careful of stone edge and it has trouble getting in or setting up usually.

Zapdos - Heatran to force it out and then it can become a victim of a gengar/salamence sweep.


THE END

But fear not, Scofield will return in "Why Would I Ever Want to Play Fair?", coming soon to RMT.

 

[Stallion]

This is a great team, which is why I gave it 5 stars.

However, the fact that you rely completely on Scizor to stop Salamence (who is easily trapped by Magnezone), and that it can easily set up a DD on Vaporeon and Heatran means that unless it gets trapped in outrage with magnezone alive, it 6-0es you. Furthermore, Bulky Salamence can 6-0 you as we stand now (DD/Dragon Claw/EQ/Roost), even setting up on a Scizor's Bullet Punch after Intimidate, and with it failing to 2HKO either.

You could either run a MixPert as a lead (which I preferred on your team in the first place over Heatran) or run Ice Beam on Vaporeon over Protect so you aren't set up on. I dunno if I'll throw your synergy off though with these changes, but thought I'd suggest them regardless.

Nice team bro :)

 

[Tarquin]

An excellent team. I know that most of the more celebrated of well known players get this comment but I was considering just the other day about the combo of Bulky Mence and BaitZone beating skarmbliss.

Howver, I can't claim for that OUTSTANDING GENGAR. Honestly, in the context of this teams synergy, it is genius :) and the rest of the team backs it up nicely.

However, I put it to you that anybody else using a scizor lure with Salazone, which is not unheard of, just usually worse done than this, can end your game right then and there. If your scizor dies, to either Celebi, Latias, Gengar, all of which can carry HP Fire, or Magnezone, the Salamence you needs a lured Fire Attack or Ground attack from Heatran or Vaporeon to set up and do some sweepin' It would just have to be conservation with outrage or use D Claw.

Anyway, Thats the only real hole I can find, :O
and it's pretty unlikely to happen, so yay =)

Lol Stallion posted the exact same rate as me as I was typing :p
Still, more conformation that it's valid.

 

[Scofield]

First, thank's for the 5 stars stallion!

and thank you to the guy who pointed out the occa/shucca mix up, I had to type that in manually and blanked out!

Now, yeah, bulky mence can be a problem. Mixed and offensive dder's aren't that much of a problem at all. If the bulky mence is an outrager, it's not a problem either, as I can easily get it to outrage, so let's assume it's a dragon claw bulky dder. I do remember losing to this set once.

Now, the good thing is that there is nothing on this team that the bulky dder can set up on immediately. It can set up on vaporeon, but usually wouldn't risk it until it knows my moveset, giving me some time to get in a sweep. Now, if it switches in on scizor, I'll usually switch out once I see how little bullet punch does and realize it's bulky. If I'm not bp'ing, I'll switch out if I'm stuck in pursuit or super power anyways, if I'm u turning I have the advantage anyways. Once I have that done, I feel I have the advantage as I can do 80% min to bulky mence over 2 turns with priority, whereas mence actually can't do that much back to me. now, if scizor is low on health, then yes, I am probably in trouble. This is part of the reason I often go with shuca tran instead of scarftran, as I dislike getting stuck into choice fire attacks.

And yes, a well put together zone+??? team can beat me, ironic that this team could beat itself. Anyways, getting scizor in the first time means that I realize a threat that can sweep my team is out there, and I just hope that forcing it out once is enough. After that, i'm just careful of the latias, etc that can sweep me, and try not to give it a chance to set up. Not to mention that latias often thinks that zone is set up bait after scizor is out, only to be met with an explosion. But I just try to stay on the offensive, and make latias a victim of my dragon dance salamence sweep.

 

[remlabmez]

Nice team, nice to see a good team when I check RMT everynow and than. I really like the gengar/mence/maggy combo as it takes advantage of trapping and setting up on the number used pokemon scizor.

Though the one glaring weakness about this team is specs jolt, which I think you have mentioned before, depending on maggy for your electric resist isnt all that great. If you were fixing the team and not retiring I would suggest a mixpert somewhere in the mix.

 

[Scofield]

Specsjolt is a B, I usually just try to wear it down, trick it into using SB somehow, force it out with zone (often exploding) until I can ohko it with scizor's resisted BP. If it spams tbolt and plays it smart, I can be in a lot of trouble though. If I get lucky and am playing with scarf tran, a lot of people don't think it's scarfed because I lead with it and often leave it in to be killed though. If I'm lucky jolts doesn't come out until mence as a dd. Unfortunately it's actually pretty easy to get in on vappy.

Yeah, I am retiring this team, but that shouldn't stop people from suggesting changes, as all good teams are never truly finished, just abandoned! Eventually I just came to accept some weaknesses and playing around other threats that I considered rare enough.

 

[iKitsune]

Obvioously this is an excellent team but you do have one weakness that isnt really worth fixing bearing in mind it is fairly rare and it would require massively changing your team but i thought i would draw your attention to it in any case.

Mamoswine is capable of single handedly ripping through the team every member is 2HKOd. Other Pokemon like scarf Flygon could also be a problem vaporeon can hold them off but if its a little weakened than that will be hard to handle. Its U-turn is going to be a problem combined with its coverage and it can like mamo 2hko everything bar Vaporeon about although protect on gengar will help. Flygon is also annoying because it speed ties with Mence and could end its sweep. Regarldless this is a fantastic team and congratulations on your world cup wins.

The only thing i would suggest changing ,as already noticed by MS is your lead. It may be an idea to change it to a lead that can handle Mamoswine. I think Bronzong will work well handles similar leads gets sr up and can even put something to sleep, of course bronzong laughs at Flygon and Mamo. Other than that you could change Vaporeon to celebi who counters Gyarados and Mamoswine quite comfortably although i doubt youll want to as Celebi is a bit passive.

Once again congratulations on the team.

 

[Scofield]

Oh yeah, this is definitely the type of team mamo LOVES to play, and as a new mamo user/lover, I agree. I just really need to be careful around it. Luckily, it can have some trouble switching in. Every mon can hit it hard or super effective. The only time it should get in on zone is if I have a sub up. If it's up against mence, it pretty much HAS to ice shard, and I can usually predict that. Ice shard doesn't ohko gengar at 100% without CB, add that with protect and I can play mind games, protecting as they ice shard and then hp fire ing when they earthquake expecting a switch to vaporeon. If I can get in heatran on an ice shard I can force it out anyways. But yes, mamo is dangerous, especially if vappy has taken some prior damage.

I've considered both celebi and zong, what stopped me from using them was that I HATE using a team with a 3x fire weakness. Fire is the best attacking type in the game and I just can't stand to have a team easily swept by fire.

And yeah, sorry if I dismiss any changes, I've probably considered a lot of these while making the team, I'm sure i've missed something though, so just keep making suggestions!

EDIT: And as for flygon, it is no problem at all. If it locks itself into eq, mence or gengar is going to take the opportunity to get a kill on the switch. If it locks itself into outrage, scizor is going to revenge it with bp or one of my steels will explode on it. And it tends to overuse u-turn. I often leave zone in and just sub up prediccting a u-turn, and if it tries to use u-turn on gengar, I just protect and scout the move, if it's u turn I just stay in and attack!

 

[franky]

Yessss good team dude, enjoyed the read (yes I read it all) and since this team obviously had many success I just came here to shower it in glory and just point out threats you should watch out for if you ever decide to use it again. PS. glad to see someone use MysticGar set. Have you really just considered using Heatran over Salamence in the slot? I know it may be something but alot of the leads are suicide and it tends to force you to switch-out almost most of the time, giving suicide leads a free SR or attack. With Heatran, at least you get SR or an attack on the opponent. Salamence needs to stay as its your only good source of good damage on the foe.

As for other options, Try 60 HP / 252 Atk / 196 SpD on your Scizor (if im not mistaken thats it) as it lets you counter Latias more effeciently, surviving 2 Specs Draco meteors in a row juust slightly better. Since Scizor is a main piece of blocking SpA attacks, I think you should consider it:

+1 vs 198 hp / 60 = 60.91% max
-1 vs 198 hp / 60 = 27.27% max

It has roughly 88% damage max and with SR it has 99% damage overall.

+1 vs 60 hp / 196 = 58.45% max
-1 vs 60 hp / 196 = 26.01% max

It has roughly 84% damage max with SR it has a 96% damage overall.

Point is the percentages of survival is really high now so this allows you to take on Latias more effeciently than before. But this is extremely situational and relies on percentage, otherwise the team is good. That shit I just said might be random blabber but its just random thoughts. but I wholehearedly agree on switching on heatran over Salamence in the future, it might just work and could benefit Salamence sweep later because it remains hidden for later stages of the match, gl.

 

[Scofield]

Sorry for the confusion, but heatran is my lead! I just structured the RMT weird as it made it easier for me to explain the team building process without making another section for it.

And more special defense on scizor is definitely worth considering as it is my main switch in to latias, I will consider that if I revamp the team, thank you!

EDIT: The reason I don't use scarf latias is that I really don't wany anything else to bait scizor besides gengar.