The Phoenix Suns

[PurePoison]

Introduction

Go Suns! Okay, never mind. This is my team, and as you probably would have guessed, it's a sun team. I've always liked the sheer power of sun teams, but also have hated how weak they were to Stealth Rock and many common threats. In the end, after many frustrating attempts to create a viable sun team, I ended up with this. I only have one fire type (excluding Ninetales) and one chlorophyll user, so you might wonder how this team has been successful with seemingly so little Pokemon to abuse the sun. Well, there's definitely support to help my three sweepers destroy teams successfully. This is my best sun team yet and although it has faults, it still has won me many games. Without further ado, here's the team.

Team at a glance

A Closer look at the team

Ninetales @ Leftovers
Trait: Drought
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 248 HP / 124 Def / 136 Spd
Timid Nature
- Flamethrower
- Will-O-Wisp
- Roar
- Sunny Day

Ninetales is quite self-explanatory here. It provides reliable sun while taking a surprising amount of hits as well. I chose a defensive set because I want him to last as long as possible, especially against opposing weather inducers. Sunny Day may seem out of place on a Drought Pokemon, it's invaluable for turning the tables on the opposing weather inducer that tries to switch in to change the weather. Will-O-Wisp is great for crippling threats (especially other weather inducers) and racking up residual damage. Roar provides some shuffling, which is a nice plus. Finally, Flamethrower is there so Ninetales won't be total setup bait. EV's are there so he can survive (hopefully) until the opposing weather inducer dies. If the other team has no weather inducer, I usually send out tales first for death fodder and to get sun up ASAP.

Donphan @ Leftovers
Trait: Sturdy
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Def
Impish Nature
- Earthquake
- Toxic
- Rapid Spin
- Stealth Rock

Donphan is my team's main rapid spinner and a great defensive anchor. I chose him over Forretress because his resistances contribute more to my team and the fact that he can slightly check Tyranitar as well, as long as it lacks ice beam, scaring it off with Earthquake. Rapid spin is obvious, while Stealth Rock provides some quick hazards, which my team needs to get clean KO's. Earthquake gives him a fighting chance while Toxic wears down walls and most spin blockers (Gengar is a pain in the ass though). EV's provide excellent durability ensuring Donphan will last a long time through careful play.

I am considering switching Donphan to an offensive spinning set because it really is starting to irk me that he can't do anything against Pokemon like Gengar and has relatively low damage output as well.

Latias (F) @ Leftovers
Trait: Levitate
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature
- Dragon Pulse
- Substitute
- Recover
- Calm Mind

Latias is one of my three sweepers and a simply invaluable, let me repeat, invaluable asset to my team. She provides so many resistances and checks so many Pokemon that my team would practically be a failure without her. I originally went with with an offensive life orb set, but I switched to a calm mind sweeper because the life orb version was dying too fast. Calm Mind and Recover in tandem provide the opponent with one hell of a long night while Substitute negates any pesky status the opponents attempts to use to stop Latias's sweep, as well as simply tormenting the opponent once she's got enough calm minds under her belt. Dragon Pulse is her only attack, but it's enough, powering through even resistances one she has even boosts.

As for how Latias fits on my team, like I said before, she provides a diamond's worth of resistances, and checks troublesome Pokemon such as Rotom-W, Infernape, Politoed (especially him, considering his rain is my team's worst nightmare) and others. She is also a wonderful defensive pivot that has saved me more times than I can count with my fingers. And finally, once her checks and counters are downed by her teammates, she is practically unstoppable from cleaning up the opponent's team.

Tangrowth @ Life Orb
Trait: Chlorophyll
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SAtk / 252 Spd
Naughty Nature
- Power Whip
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Earthquake
- Growth

The second member of my team's Big Three, Tangrowth is my main (and only) Chlorophyll abuser. Despite not being the fastest Pokemon even in sun, there are reasons why I chose him over other chlorophyll sweepers such as Venusaur and Sawsbuck. The main reason is the sheer bulk that Tangrowth packs, even when running an offensive set. He can check Tyranitar lacking a super effective special move and swiftly KO him with a power whip. Growth boost Tangrowth's stats incredibly in sun while Hidden Power Fire and Earthquake provide nice coverage. Power Whip, aside from checking threats like T-Tar, is an absolute force when growth boosted.

Tangrowth fits onto my team in many ways. Apart from being my only chlorophyll user, he also provides good defensive flexibility and use to my team. He also supports Donphan in checking Tyranitar, which is a nice plus as well.

Volcarona @ Leftovers
Trait: Flame Body
EVs: 240 HP / 216 Def / 52 Spd
Bold Nature
- Fiery Dance
- Bug Buzz
- Roost
- Quiver Dance

Man, you won't get just how good this guy can be unless you use him. Sure, he packs an embarrassing weakness to stealth rock, but when used right, the third and final sweeper of my team strikes fear into the hearts of opponents. I chose a bulky set as it can last fairly long and still sweep the other team. Quiver Dance is there of course, while Roost provides healing. Fiery dance and bug buzz are his attacking moves (with the former having a nice chance to raise his special attack even further).

Volcarona, being my only fire type, absolutely destoys opposing Pokemon hoping to wall my other members. He can sponge a hit, boost like crazy, heal up, and proceed to turn the opposition in flaming piles of dust. He requires quite a bit of support from my other members, noticeably Donphan and his rapid spin, but once you've got that, there isn't a lot that can stop him.

Snorlax @ Choice Band
Trait: Thick Fat
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 80 HP / 252 Atk / 176 SDef
Adamant Nature
- Return
- Fire Punch
- Earthquake
- Pursuit

Snorlax, despite not being one of my sweepers is the MVP of my team, bar none. This guy has saved my butt a billion times minus one and is only rivaled by Latias in how much he gives to the team. I use a choice band set for immediate power, as being locked into one move can be avoided with prediction. Return is a crazily powerful STAB move while fire punch and earthquake providing coverage, with the former getting a sweet sun boost as well. Pursuit is where Snorlax really shines on my team. He literally scares the living daylights out of opposing Gengar, Latias, Latios, and more, which hope to wreak havoc on my team.

Snorlax provides amazing support on my team to remove pesky Pokemon that threaten my team so my other member can sweep successfully. I was actually considering using Chansey or Blissey in replace of him to wall the Pokemon I mentioned earlier, but I chose Snorlax instead for the fact that he can do that, as well as trap and eliminate those Pokemon. It was probably the best choice I made in my life.

Conclusion
Thank you so much for taking a look at my team. I am very proud of it and hope to succeed even further with it, so please give your suggestions! Thanks again for reading and have a great day! :)

 

[MCBarrett]

Hey PurePoison, interesting sun team you have here with some underused mons that i think is pretty cool, I'll try to help you out while still keeping some of this originality in tact!

Let's start the rate off with your spinner, Donphan. Donphan is really a pretty underwhelming pokemon due to it's inability to recover off damage. Therefore I think you should replace Donphan with Xatu. Xatu does not have access to rapid spin but his ability blocks hazards/ status moves/ taunt etc. and flings it back at the opponent! You can use this to save your sweepers from status moves which is very helpful. On top of this Xatu can recover its hp with roost and can eliminate steel types with heat wave, which sub CM Latias absolutely hates.

Next, i'll give you a suggestion on your Tangrowth. Since he doesn't have the great speed to pull of sweeps like venusaur or sawsbuck can i would recommend switching hp fire for Sleep Powder. You have a lot of fire moves already and on top of this you will now be able to get some easy growth boosts to help break through some more defensive pokemon. Even things like ferrothorn don't enjoy +2 earthquakes very much.

Now I was going to suggest replacing Snorlax originally but I really like the idea of it now since it is really the only thing that can fit on a sun team that can use pursuit successfully that I can think of but this makes your team still very weak to most opposing dragon types. Therefore I'll go back and recommend you switching your sub CM Latias to a scarfed Latios Latios has more immediate offensive fire power and it can outspeed all opposing dragon choice scarf users that would otherwise annihilate your team.

Well I hope I helped and hopefully your team will bring some more usage to CB Snorlax in the sun to trap the lati twins! Good luck with it and here are the sets:

Hide

Xatu @ rocky helmet
bold nature
252 def/ 4 sp def/ 4 hp
roost
toxic
u-turn
heat wave

Latios @ choice scarf
Timid nature
252 sp att/ 4 hp/ 252 speed
Draco meteor
hidden power fire
psyshock
trick

 

[Prinz]

Hey!

Interesting sun team you have here, Snorlax isn't common nowadays so props for using it on your team. Speaking about your team, I see that you haven't a revenge-killer and this is pretty bad because revenge-killers are very very important in the current bw ou metagame since they allow to deal setupper such as Dragon Dance Dragonite, Dragon Dance Salamence, Thundurus-T and so on. Therefore, I suggest you to change Latias' set in a Choice Scarf one because Choice Scarf Latias is a very good revenge-killer thanks to her Speed so she can help you a lot against setupper and she give in general more Speed at your team which seems very slow because Ninetales, Donphan and Snorlax are really slow and because your current revenge-killer, Tangrowth is only fast when sun is up and that's isn't very good since rain and sand teams are everywhere so sun can't be up all the battle. Then, I found that dragon-types such as Dragonite and Salamence can be another problem for your team since you haven't solid switch into them, therefore I suggest you to Ice Shard replacing Toxic on your Donphan which helps you to deal dragon-types more easily and it's in general a better move than Toxic on Donphan because it can't stall opponent's pokemon with Toxic since it hasn't a recovery move. As last thing, I think that you can try Protect instead of Roar on Ninetales since setupper aren't a problem for this team with my changes and because Protect would help you a lot against choice item users such as Terrakion and Keldeo but this is optional so if you prefer Roar you can keep it without any problem.

Good luck.

 

[Jimbon]

Hi there,

Really interesting team, with a nice use of CB Snorlax and Offensive Tangrowth which is cool to see. Anyway, as for your team, I think that your worst matchup does seem to be Rain. You only really have one switch-in for stuff such as Scarf Keldeo and Specs Politoed in Latias, as your other water resist in Tangrowth has pretty awful special defense and has no business switching into either of these. As a result, I'd strongly consider keeping your current Latias set, despite the recommendations of others. I'd argue that Latias does too much for your team to replace it, and otherwise you lose pretty easily to stuff such as Rock Polish Landorus and Agility Thundurus when Snorlax has taken prior damage.

Also looking at your Tangrowth set, I think there is something you could change. I don't really think you need Hidden Power [Fire] on Tangrowth to beat Steels when you already have Ninetales + Volcarona for them. Try out Hidden Power [Ice] in it's place, and you might find that you sweep a lot more consistently. I'd argue taking out Dragons is much more important, especially given that you lack a Steel type and your only switch-in to things such as Salamence and Dragonite is Donphan who has no recovery, so has trouble continually switching in.

Given that your main matchup will be against Rain, I think you could change something slightly to help against this. I'd strongly consider moving the Defense EVs on Ninetales over to Special Defense and try a Calm Nature. One of the best things about using Ninetales is the ability to continually switch into stuff like Politoed, which you have some trouble doing with the physically defensive set. Given you already have Volcarona and Donphan for a physical backbone, I'm not entirely sure why you need Ninetales to be physically defensive too. I'd also advise the use of Toxic over Will-O-Wisp, as I'd argue crippling stuff such as Life Orb Latias and opposing Volcarona is a lot more important than say burning a Terrakion, especially when you already have Donphan for it. It also hits bulky waters which is nice, as Latias can use them as setup fodder. If you choose to go with this change, you don't need to run Toxic on Donphan, so go with Alexander's suggestion of Ice Shard for the reasons he listed.

Good luck!