Things Fall Apart
When Black and White was released I didn't get too excited about it. Weather wars and a shift way from a stall vs offense metagame to a metagame based around abusing weather made it hard for me to get into B/W in a competitive way because I couldn't use a lot of what I knew from generation 4 in the new game. The game had changed and I was pretty much left behind.
I played for a while when blaziken was OU, I had a pretty successful run mainly because of how overpowered Blaziken was, anyone who denies that its uber is believing their own lies. In the same way many sand stall players seem to think Excadrill isn't worthy of a ban. Like those suburbanites who deny global warming because they drive SUVs, users of Excadrill want to believe that the pokemon they derive their success from isn't just broken. In other words they have to believe that they are skilled. After Blaziken was banned I stopped playing again, I'm not great at pokemon, but I'm competent: if something is as broken as Blaziken I will be successful abusing it.
When Excadrill was banned in this recent round of suspect testing I decided to come back to pokemon. I felt that my own rather one-dimensional style of play could be successful again, but before I get into that I want to lay out my own feelings on why Excadrill is broken.
In past generations the way you revenge killed a pokemon was through a priority move (if it had been weakened), or through a pokemon with a Choice Scarf. The dominant users of this item in 4th generation were Flygon, Jirachi, and Rotom-a. There was a trade off to being able to revenge kill a pokemon who had already gotten set-up: you got locked into a move and essentially gave a free turn to your opponent. If you're opponent was playing stall they usually used that turn (where you switched out) to set up a layer of spikes, to punish you even more for being forced to switch out. And if they were playing offense they set-up another pokemon in that time, threatening even further.
Scarf pokemon were bad in generation 4. But they were a necessary evil. If you didn't want to get swept by Gyarados you ran one, simple as that. Stall teams laughed at scarf pokemon that didn't have trick, they we're essentially dead weight, and offense could sometimes use that free turn to set up something too powerful for your team to deal with, something like swords dance Lucario etc.
Excadrill changed everything. He could revenge kill a set-up sweeper with ease using STAB earthquakes and he wouldn't be locked into a move. He gave away no free turns. Sand stall could put him at the end of their team and he would basically make certain that an offensive team wouldn't be able to get through. Against other stall teams he can set-up late game and clear entry hazards on the same moveset. No 'good' ghost type can come in on Excadrill repeatedly. Not to mention the fact that tyranitar can trap any of them with pursuit.
So with Excadrill gone I decided it was safe to return to a the full offensive style that I love:
Deoxys-e
Leftovers
Timid
252 HP, 252 Speed, 4 Defense
Stealth Rock
Ice Beam
Taunt
Spikes
Every offensive team needs entry hazards, and the sooner they get put out the better. The danger of dedicated entry hazards on a somewhat frail offensive team is that something could set-up on you as you put them up, and thats why taunt is on this set instead of magic coat.
Team preview has changed the way the game is played in such a way that I think there is a mentality that suicide leads are no longer viable, which is simply untrue. Having a dedicated lead promotes the important principle of strategy over coverage. All the time I see teams on the ladder that have no apparent strategy. Instead they have an answer for everything.
Don't be confused, I'm not describing stall teams which have a clear strategy based around entry hazards and status moves. I'm describing what I would call 'balanced' teams that have a mentality that "If i have a switch into everything, how can I lose?" This might even have worked when Excadrill was in OU, but now to be successful it isn't enough to just not lose, you have to win.
If anything team preview makes dedicated suicide leads better by allowing the user of such a lead to eliminate any prediction games associated with the beginning team preview jockeying. How do you create consistency in a game where there is an element of luck? Eliminate prediction. Its just as much blind guessing as it ever was.
Haxorus
Lum Berry
Adamant
32hp, 252 attack, 224 speed
Dragon Dance
Outrage
Taunt
Earthquake
Haxorus is pure class, I can't go on enough about the ridiculous of pure dragon typing. Taunt is meant to stop phazing and status moves etc.
Haxorus is one of the best pokemon for my team against rain teams. It sets up on pretty much every common rain pokemon, and it can KO all of them except ferrothorn at +1. While normally I send out haxorus early, it has late game utility with taunt so its maybe the most important pokemon on this team after deoxsy-e.
At +1 outrage will 2hko steels that don't invest in defense (Jirachi for example), and after sr and spikes even the bulky steels will be taking massive damage. Lum Berry is largely just so that Sableye doesnt fuck up this team, though I've sort of decided that Prankster Sableye isn't very good even against this team, can't take repeated hits :/
In drawing another parallel to 4th generation, I'm going to throw out the idea that Salamence was banned not because it was too good offensively, but because it was too good at support. Essentially, once it sets-up, any wall capable of dealing with it (and there were few) would be far to weak to handle another sweeper, and it made sweeping dramatically easier than normal for pokemon such as Lucario.
On this team Haxorus is filling the role that Salamence would have in 4th generation. After Skarmory brave birds me twice and has taken too outrages it will be left around 20%, too low to come back around and deal with tyranitar or scizor.
Salamence
Life Orb
Naive
252 Speed/ 24 special attack/ 232 Attack
Intimidate
Dragon Dance
Outrage
Fireblast
Earthquake
On this team salamence serves two purposes. Arguably the most important purpose it has is intimidating any attacker that sets up on this team. Certain pokemon like Gyarados and Dragonite are too dangerous if they get a window to set up, and salamence both threatens them and prevents them from sweeping.
The second role Salamence plays is in threatening Skarmory. Skarmory can essentially come in with impunity on Haxorus, Scizor, and tyranitar, so having something immune to spikes that can come in is important. It also hits base 100 speed making it the fastest sweeper on the team.
Salamence is really on this team because it is so similar to haxorus, can't get enough. But looking beyond this, Salamence is also maybe the only pokemon on this team that is still excellent even when it isn't set-up. Despite not having Dracometeor, the way the moveset works is such that Salamence can easily step into the same role as mixmence, and its this type of versatility that makes Salamence excellent.
Tyranitar
Lum Berry
Jolly
252 attack/252 speed/4 hp
Dragon Dance
Stone Edge
Aqua Tail
Crunch
Aqua tail smacks Gliscor, and will OHKO it at +1 in the rain. In any case, this Tyranitar will always beat Gliscor, as earthquake doesn't ohko. Like Salamence, Tyranitar serves 2 roles on this team.
While this is by no means a weather based team, I can still very easily be screwed by rain or hail in certain situations. In hail's case, this Tyranitar is a unstoppable sweeper at +1, they just lose nothing doing. Rain isn't as threatened, but if Ferrothorn is weakened they are going to lose Politoed in all likelihood as they try to stop the sweep. against Sun teams the utility is obvious, I really can't prevent Venusaur from sweeping any other way so Tyranitar is unreplacable.
Tyranitar also serves as a check to dominant special sweepers like Tornadus and Latios that are very threatening to this team. Remember, it isn't just enough that Scizor and Lucario can use priority moves to kill such pokemon, if I can't set up on them my team loses momentum and thats when I lose. This strategy is all about controlling the tempo of the match and keeping it faster than they can possibly keep up with.
Typically, I win long before Tyranitar has to come in, and in theory Salamence and Haxorus should be dead before then, that way they don't end up getting hit by sand stream damage, which in conjunction with Life Orb will cause Salamence to wilt pretty damn fast.
Lucario
Life Orb
Adamant
252 speed/ 4 defense/ 252 attack
Swords Dance
Close Combat
Extreme Speed
Crunch
Like Salamence, Lucario was almost unusable as a late game sweeper when Excadrill was in OU. This, in combination with team preview allowing an opponent to see Lucario ahead of time and prepare, makes Lucario much less viable as a pokemon to build a team around than it was in generation 4. My team circumvents this nerf by not building around it, and instead using it as just one part in an offensive machine meant to break stall.
Extreme speed is the first priority move on this team, and every team offensive team needs to rely on priority to revenge kill anything that happens to set-up. We can't rely on Choice Scarf because we lose if we give away free turns. Lucario is also the only pokemon on this team besides Salamence that really threatens Skarmory.
I predict Lucario will rise again to the popularity it had in generation 4, this moveset is just far too good to not be used. At +2 extreme speed will KO most things that outspeed it, including scarf Rotom, Landorus, and Tornadus. The things that it can't sweep through like Terakion, scarf Tyranitar, etc, are all great set-up fodder for scizor.
Scizor
Life Orb
Adamant
252 attack/ 100 Speed/ 156 Hp
Swords Dance
Bullet Punch
Super Power
Bug Bite
This is the best endgame pokemon in BW OU period. It stops set-up sweepers cold, picks off weakened walls, and prevents coverage sweepers like Mamoswine and Gengar from routing my team late game. The EV spread is a little different from the one I usually use, as I sometimes need the extra bulk to handle Terrakion's Close Combat. Normally I run a faster set. The speed EV's will outspeed Politoeds that don't invest, as well as Metagross and minimum speed Heatran. Keep in mind that Scizor is perhaps the best switch in to Ferrothorn in the game, and his utility is not limited by paralysis.
This is also the pokemon I typically lead off with against baton pass, as at +2 it will sweep the standard baton pass chain, and they don't have any way to prevent it from setting up and this is the only pokemon I ever lead off with other than Deoxys-e.
How to Play This Team: Understand that the goal of this team is to smash all of the defensive pokemon on their team until they're too weak to take any more damage so that something eventually sweeps. Remember that if you don't keep the pressure on them, your opponent will be able to bring out their own offensive pokemon and you don't really have any defense to keep them from sweeping you! Its okay for your pokemon to die in an attempt to weaken a wall! If Salamence dies to get Jirachi to 50% so that later it won't be able to take a +1 outrage from Haxorus thats fine. Every pokemon on this team is walled by physical walls, but eventually the wall(s) will be too weak to stop another physical sweeper and that is when you've won. Sacrificing the correct pokemon is key, as is recognizing which of your sweepers is most threatening to them, that way you can conserve it for when the time is ripe.
Above all else, avoid getting caught in prediction, this team is designed to eliminate the necessity of prediction and rather than prediction being a key skill for this team, timing and thinking ahead are the keys to winning. Know where you want to go with the match, if at first it seems that nothing on your team can get an outright sweep, see if you can wear a pokemon down so it can't stop a sweep. All the time I see teams that would be 6-0ed by Scizor if it weren't for Heatran, so what do you do? Make the game about killing Heatran. The way to win is always there, you just have to see it soon enough.
