Collide - LohgockIntroductionI decided to make a RMT of a team I've been playing with for months and I guess it's the right time to retire it now after I lost the OU match in the pound-for-pound tournament against Masterclass who made a good prediction I wasn't able to recover from. The team itself is probably one the best I've ever made and I'm proud of it and the idea behind it. Speaking of which, a little bit of history: Once upon a time I took a nap on our couch and thought of the mighty Item "Rocky Helmet". In conjunction with Rough Skin it is able to deal a lot of damage to physical attackers while my own Pokemon doesn't even need to do something. Next thing I thought was, if I'm able to punish physical attackers for, well, attacking physically, a Pokemon using Calm Mind could really benefit from that. So the first Pokemon in the team were Garchomp and Ferrothorn, both having Rocky Helmet, and a Latias as my CM sweeper. I constructed the team in my mind and whatever I did, the team just didn't became solid enough. So I replaced Ferrothorn with a Skarmory and suddenly, the team began to evolve. After finishing the team I gave it to a few people who all really liked it. I also asked BKC what he thinks about the team and he told me to replace Latias with Starmie. It worked ok, but I don't really need a spinner and the lack of my cleaner hurt a lot, so I stuck with Latias. Sorry man =P The TeamSkarmory @ Rocky Helmet Part one of my Rocky Helmet duo. It's here to provide my team with Spikes support helping Latias to clean properly endgame aswell as weakening the likes of Scizor while they U-Turn out. Especially the latter is extremely essential for the final Latias/Virizion clean because Scizor checks them both pretty nicely. It also breaks VoltTurn-chains. Although they're not as popular as they were in BW1, they are still annoying to deal with but between Spikes and Rocky Helmet Scizor won't last long. Even though you don't see Skarmory much these days and if you see it, it is a Custap lead, it performs pretty well checking a lot of stuff in todays metagame while Sturdy acts as an emergency check to the likes of Volcarona who pose a big threat to my team. Garchomp @ Rocky Helmet Garchomp is just a great Pokemon and does so many things for my team even though it normally dies first. It sets up the essential Stealth Rocks reliably since most people think Tyranitar is my SR setter and completes the Rocky Helmet core together with Skarmory. I just love how Scarf Rachi gets a ton of damage by U-Turning out while it does about nothing to Chomp. I sometimes even switch Chomp into CB Crunch from Tyranitar just to get the damage I need to clean with Latias endgame. It's pretty sad, but Garchomp does not attack often, however, that's fine since it doesn't need to. Usually it comes in, sets up Rocks, switches out and then switches in like 1-2 times latter into a U-Turn or something. Still, if it attacks, it's nothing to mess around with. Earthquake, even uninvested, does a ton and Dragon Tail is cool for shuffling. Fire Blast is there to surprise hit the likes of Skarmory and Forretress to, guess what, clean the path for Latias. The EVs are taken from on-site allowing Chomp to maintain a lot of bulk while the nature it there to still outspeed some stuff I don't remember. Virizion @ Leftovers Virizion, an underrated force in todays metagame. Viri was the last mon added. I needed a secondary check to Thundurus-T, Tyranitar, Ferrothorn and Landorus-I and a back-up plan to win in case Latias fails due to whatever. My team also didn't enjoy facing Politoed because it could just poison my two water-resists. Well, not like Viri doesn't get poisoned but it doesn't care because it won't stay in long anyway. The EVs are to outspeed everything up to 102 basespeed. A few Sp.Atk. EVs so it won't do shit and the rest into HP for.. bulk. Virizion doesn't normally sweep but still poses a threat to a lot of teams that aren't prepared for it. It's also a pretty cool lure for Jirachi and Celebi, so I just need to double switch to either Skarmory or Garchomp, depending on their sets, to set up some Spikes or Rocks or shuffle or whatever. Jellicent @ Leftovers Jellicent provides me with it's ability to stop any Spinner not called SubToxic Tentacruel or LO Starmie, which are taken care of by my other mons. It also has a ton of useful resistances allowing it to stop last mon SD Scizor and walling Keldeo to hell and back. Since Keldeo + Pursuiter is such a common strategy it's a godsend to have two Keldeo-counters. Despite having two other water-resists, Jellicent is my to-go guy for any choiced Politoed, as Ice Beam hurts Virizion and Latias a lot, as well as being the closest thing to actually counter Skarmory and Forretress. Many teams do fail to counter Jellicent properly and more often than not a physical attacker on the enemy team gets burned through WoW or Scald, which is excellent for my two Calm Minders. Tyranitar @ Choice Scarf When it comes to choosing a Tyranitar-set most people tend to use either SDef-Tar with Stealth Rocks or CB Tar to clean the path for their Keldeo or Landorus-I, respectively. So, despite being the standard-set once, not many people expect a Choice Scarf on Tyranitar what more often than not leads to suprise KOs. Nowadays, nearly every Celebi has Baton Pass to escape Tyranitars Pursuit but thanks to Choice Scarf Celebi loses ~70% through Crunch thinking it's able to escape without any damage taken. Scarf is also incredibly useful to attack Tentacruel before it does to avoid a possible Scald burn. ScarfTar still does the same things CB Tar does: Pursuiting Gengar, the Latis, Starmie and lots of other stuff. It found his way into my team for two main reasons. Together with Skarmory Tyranitar is my weapon against dragons. While Skarmory takes Outrages for days, Tyranitar takes care of special dragons that would own me otherwise. I also need it to better combat opposing weather teams. While I don't rely on Sandstorm in any way, Rain and Sun-Teams need their weather to be active to actually be effective thus Tyranitar is more like a going-on-weather-teams-nerves-mon rather than providing my team with useful weather on it's own. Latias @ Leftovers The star of the show. The Pokemon it all comes down in the end. Latias is so damn effective at what it does. It has insane bulk that becomes sky-high after a few Calm Mind-boosts. While its physical bulk is decent at best, that shouldn't be any problem when Latias' teammates did their work. Normally Latias only comes in when every counter in the opponent's team is either dead or weakened to a point where Latias has no problem dealing with it. Setting up is no problem thanks to Substitute. You don't need to worry about a Rotom-Ws Thunder Wave, a Jellicents Toxic or a tricked Choice item because Substitute blocks them all. You can also show your middlefinger to Scizor by subbing away while they U-Turn. With a little luck Latias is able to beat Ferrothorn aswell by stalling out its Gyro Ball PPs (if it doesn't have Gyro Ball it's set-up fodder anyway). Beside being my late-game cleaner I need Latias to counter sun-teams as well as rain-teams which it does just nicely due to it's typing. All in all Latias is one of my favorite Pokemon to use. It combines power, speed and bulk while walling the biggest threats this Metagame has to offer. Importable |