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This takes the same route as alakazam in the fact that it hits hard and can beat both zapdos an Terrakion one on one. It's also really powerful and has very few offensive switch ins. It also doesn't give pokes set up opportunities unless it's at -2 but if that happens we have most likely got a kill or we've mispredicted and that isn't latios's fault. Jirachi and scizor are 2 of the few to actually counter it except scizor gets 2hkod so. Good teammates are lucario and cobalion due to the fact that it can take x-scissors and stone edge. It also is a good switch in against zapdos as it can recover off the damage and it forces team 2 to pick a counter.
Ferrothorn switches in easily and sets up Spikes or paralyzes / Leech Seeds the switch-in. While this could make Team 2 weak to Fighting attacks, it's not really ideal to pick something shut down so hard by a single pick, which is not a bad one by any stretch of imagination.
Ferrothorn switches in easily and sets up Spikes or paralyzes / Leech Seeds the switch-in. While this could make Team 2 weak to Fighting attacks, it's not really ideal to pick something shut down so hard by a single pick, which is not a bad one by any stretch of imagination.
But slowbro sucks against celebi and other bulky grasses and hippowdon sucks against xatu, skarm, celebi and lati twins. Alakazam can't stand jirach and Golurk doesn't like quite a few pokes due to it being so slow. My point is every poke has counters and Latios is no exception. Another question is why does my gyarados get rejected because it has t-wave a way of stopping pokes getting in when slowbro has the same problem. Can someone explain why?
But slowbro sucks against celebi and other bulky grasses and hippowdon sucks against xatu, skarm, celebi and lati twins. Alakazam can't stand jirach and Golurk doesn't like quite a few pokes due to it being so slow. My point is every poke has counters and Latios is no exception. Another question is why does my gyarados get rejected because it has t-wave a way of stopping pokes getting in when slowbro has the same problem. Can someone explain why?
Well, first off, I loved your Gyarados and I voted for it. I love Thunder Wave in general and think that it is invaluable.
However, one thing in this particular case is that Slowbro is valuable no matter what the other team chooses due to Regenerator, Thunder Wave, and Flamethrower. Typical counters like Celebi and other bulky grasses don't necessarily appreciate Thunder Wave or Flamethrower (even with Natural Cure, it still sucks to get parahaxed), and Slowbro can stick it out with Slack Off and Regenerator for the whole match.
But, yes, I loved your Gyarados.
EDIT: To clarify, I mean that there isn't really any one Pokemon that just makes Slowbro complete fodder. When Alakazam can't get through Jirachi or others, it's just dead weight. It can't fill any other sort of niche with the exception of, say, Encore for set-up sweepers. When Hippowdon can't set up rocks or attack, all it really does is set up sandstorm, which your team has to go out of its way to take advantage of. When Slowbro can't kill something, though, it can still perpetually take advantage of scouting with Regenerator and threaten status. It can still endlessly counter Terrakion no matter what. Sure, it can be taken advantage of like any other pick, but the utility it brings to the table is more universal and harder to "deny," so to speak. I can stop you from setting up and sweeping, I can stop you from paralyzing something, but I can't stop you from switching and regaining your health. I can only try to deter it (Pursuit, hazards). And the directions Slowbro forces Team 2 to go are directions Team 1 can ultimately capitalize on later more easily than the directions Hippowdon or Latios forces Team 2 to go.
But slowbro sucks against celebi and other bulky grasses and hippowdon sucks against xatu, skarm, celebi and lati twins. Alakazam can't stand jirach and Golurk doesn't like quite a few pokes due to it being so slow. My point is every poke has counters and Latios is no exception. Another question is why does my gyarados get rejected because it has t-wave a way of stopping pokes getting in when slowbro has the same problem. Can someone explain why?
Slowbro is a wall, you don't usually expect walls to have overwhelming offensive presence. Latios is not a wall, it's going to be destroyed by CB Close Combat anyway, so if we pick it, we do for its offensive potential. Unfortunately being fully walled by something shows how this potential is not that impressive at this point of our process. A suggestion could be to either ditch Psyshock for HP Fire (so you can hit both Steels and Heatran) or to just go Choice Specs + Trick; both of them are far from ideal but at least do give Latios a way to do something against a possible Ferrothorn switch-in. To sum up, we're not going (or at least, I'm not going to vote for) an offensive pokemon that fails to apply considerable pressure on Team 2 and does little for enabling us to handle a CB Terrakion who got a free switch somehow.
Also, on your Gyarados being rejected: it wasn't, just voters preferred spending their vote on something else. Good sets are continually being "rejected" in this kind of project (although I don't think that Gyarados was incredibly good, but that's just me probably) so don't get salty and keep up posting good sets, one will be eventually selected!
Alright, since the discussion is kinda stale (and that kinda confirms the strain Terrakion puts on Team 1, just as I hoped), let's go straight into voting! We're picking the second pokemon of Team 1 from the following list:
To vote, you must send a PM to Melee Mewtwo; your PM should contain both in the title and the body "CtP: your preference", where your preference is selected from the previous list. You'll have at least 24 hours to vote.
But I wonder how 252Atk/212Hp/44Def Adamant CB Huge Power Azumarril would fare against team 2. It is 2HKO by Terrakion and can OHKO back with Superpower. It can take 2hits from Zapdos and OHKO back with SR.
Banded Tyranitar would be a pretty bad pick for Team 1. With Terrakion on Team 2, there's little use for Tyranitar in general. It can KO Zapdos wit Stone Edge, but that's really the only utility that it provides for us.
Assuming we want a Rock Resist, pokemon like Lucario, Keldeo and Garchomp are all excellent choices since they can all sorta take a Rock attack and put offensive pressure on. All have their pros and cons so I will let various people discuss those.
Alternatively, we can go for more frailer mons such as Breloom and Dugtrio, which actually threaten Terrakion a fair but, while being 50/50 switches. All of the above mons are good discussion worthy mons IMO.
Conkeldurr @ Leftovers
Trait: Guts
EVs: 120 HP / 252 Atk / 136 SDef
IVs: 0 Spd
Brave Nature
- Drain Punch
- Payback
- Mach Punch
- Bulk Up
Conkeldurr isn't something you really see often in OU, it's often considered to be outclassed by the likes of Breloom. However, Team 2 already has Zapdos, a great Breloom check, giving Conkeldurr a chance to shine. Conkeldurr has everything we need and more; it resists rock, it has great bulk, it's difficult to counter, it's a great answer to both Zapdos and Terrakion, etc. Conkeldurr can easily switch into Terrakion when it's locked into Stone Edge and proceed to start setting up Bulk Ups, which not only sets us up for a sweep, but it forces team 2 to think twice before clicking Stone Edge. Having access to priority is always great, and it provides us with an emergency answer to any dangerous sweepers team 2 may choose in the future. The choice between Ice Punch and Payback was difficult, especially considering all the ground types we would use Ice Punch for are checked by Slowbro and Landorus, however, Ice Punch is better in this metagame in general considering the amount of good Psychic and ghost types there are in comparison to good Ground and Flying types there are and Ice Punch is much better against Zapdos. In the end I chose Ice Punch because many of the Psychic types team 2 could pick seem like strange choices for a CtP (going with Payback now based on feedback, but I am perfectly happy to replace Payback with Ice Punch if you can convince me to do so).
Here is a list of pokemon (courtesty of honko) who can successfully switch in on stone edge/x-scissor well (ignore most of the odd spreads as even when those pokemon have normal spreads they can still function sufficiently. The keeping of the odd ones is simply for (my) convenience sake to get rid of duplicates):
252 Atk Choice Band Terrakion Stone Edge vs. 252 HP / 208+ Def Cobalion: 9.84 - 11.65%
252 Atk Choice Band Terrakion X-Scissor vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Hippowdon: 20 - 23.57%
-1 252 Atk Choice Band Terrakion Stone Edge vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Hitmontop: 19.73 - 23.68%
252 Atk Choice Band Terrakion X-Scissor vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Donphan: 21.61 - 25.52%
252 Atk Choice Band Terrakion X-Scissor vs. 252 HP / 224+ Def Jirachi: 23.76 - 28.21%
252 Atk Choice Band Terrakion Stone Edge vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Nidoqueen: 25 - 29.42%
252 Atk Choice Band Terrakion X-Scissor vs. 252 HP / 88+ Def Ferrothorn: 25 - 29.54%
252 Atk Choice Band Terrakion X-Scissor vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Quagsire: 26.39 - 31.21%
252 Atk Choice Band Terrakion X-Scissor vs. 252 HP / 196 Def Garchomp: 26.66 - 31.42%
252 Atk Choice Band Terrakion Stone Edge vs. 252 HP / 176+ Def Golurk: 28.53 - 33.76%
252 Atk Choice Band Terrakion X-Scissor vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Metagross: 28.57 - 33.79%
252 Atk Choice Band Terrakion Stone Edge vs. 252 HP / 96 Def Magnezone: 28.77 - 34.01%
252 Atk Choice Band Terrakion Stone Edge vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Lucario: 29.07 - 34.04%
252 Atk Choice Band Terrakion X-Scissor vs. 252 HP / 168 Def Bronzong: 29.28 - 34.61%
252 Atk Choice Band Terrakion Stone Edge vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Conkeldurr: 30.67 - 36.23%
252 Atk Choice Band Terrakion X-Scissor vs. 236 HP / 252+ Def Breloom: 33.75 - 40%
252 Atk Choice Band Terrakion Stone Edge vs. 248 HP / 44 Def Empoleon: 34.77 - 40.97%
252 Atk Choice Band Terrakion X-Scissor vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Scrafty: 34.73 - 41.01%
252 Atk Choice Band Terrakion Stone Edge vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Eviolite Magneton: 34.71 - 41.32%
252 Atk Choice Band Terrakion Stone Edge vs. 252 HP / 184+ Def Eviolite Porygon2: 36.09 - 42.51%
252 Atk Choice Band Terrakion X-Scissor vs. 172 HP / 0 Def Swampert: 36.97 - 43.75%
252 Atk Choice Band Terrakion X-Scissor vs. 252 HP / 84 Def Gastrodon: 37.32 - 44.13%
252 Atk Choice Band Terrakion X-Scissor vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Cresselia: 37.38 - 44.14%
Here is the same list without the pokemon who cannot deal with zapdos (the current obvious switch in to a counter):
-1 252 Atk Choice Band Terrakion Stone Edge vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Hitmontop: 19.73 - 23.68%
252 Atk Choice Band Terrakion X-Scissor vs. 252 HP / 224+ Def Jirachi: 23.76 - 28.21%
252 Atk Choice Band Terrakion Stone Edge vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Nidoqueen: 25 - 29.42%
252 Atk Choice Band Terrakion X-Scissor vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Quagsire: 26.39 - 31.21%
252 Atk Choice Band Terrakion X-Scissor vs. 252 HP / 196 Def Garchomp: 26.66 - 31.42%
252 Atk Choice Band Terrakion Stone Edge vs. 252 HP / 176+ Def Golurk: 28.53 - 33.76%
252 Atk Choice Band Terrakion X-Scissor vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Metagross: 28.57 - 33.79%
252 Atk Choice Band Terrakion Stone Edge vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Lucario: 29.07 - 34.04%
252 Atk Choice Band Terrakion X-Scissor vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Scrafty: 34.73 - 41.01%
252 Atk Choice Band Terrakion Stone Edge vs. 252 HP / 184+ Def Eviolite Porygon2: 36.09 - 42.51%
252 Atk Choice Band Terrakion X-Scissor vs. 172 HP / 0 Def Swampert: 36.97 - 43.75%
252 Atk Choice Band Terrakion X-Scissor vs. 252 HP / 84 Def Gastrodon: 37.32 - 44.13%
And again to the pokemon who fit well in the theme of not being easy to counter and such:
252 Atk Choice Band Terrakion X-Scissor vs. 252 HP / 224+ Def Jirachi: 23.76 - 28.21%
252 Atk Choice Band Terrakion Stone Edge vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Nidoqueen: 25 - 29.42%
252 Atk Choice Band Terrakion X-Scissor vs. 252 HP / 196 Def Garchomp: 26.66 - 31.42%
252 Atk Choice Band Terrakion Stone Edge vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Lucario: 29.07 - 34.04%
252 Atk Choice Band Terrakion X-Scissor vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Scrafty: 34.73 - 41.01%
Jirachi either has little offensive presence or can be worked around incredibly easily once the set is known (versatility is the scary part).
Nidoqueen is fun but slow and serves the same (but lesser) role that lando does.
Garchomp is nice but even yache chomp can simply be outsped and ko'd, otherwise priority ice shard is a bitch. Plus compounds ice weakness
Scrafty is slow, meh, and easy to take advantage of. Thus...
Lucario @ Life Orb
Trait: Inner Focus
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Adamant Nature
- Close Combat
- Ice Punch
- Extremespeed
- Bullet Punch
Yes walled by jellicent, whatever. But tbh, a jellicent pick is not all that bad for team one considering the lack of offensive presence. In any case, sd lucario. Can use the turn from terrakion's non cc to dent whatever the switchin may be. Otherwise, bullet punch deals with weakened/post-cc terrakion and ice punch 1hkos zapdos after rocks. Extremespeed is welcome priority and close combat severely dents virtually everything. 4 move coverage allows it to function as a very potent all out attacker (still has 4 mss...) that, with its very nice resistances and power, is a great utility for the team. No sd because, as mentioned below, with its wonderful 6mss, finding a luke counter is quite easy, halting a sweep. So it is best used in this case to deal with the two threats currently on the opposing team and punch holes
The problem with Lucario is that Team 2 has both Terrakion and Zapdos. This means it'll never actually carry out a sweep since it will either be walled by Zapdos (without Ice Punch) or RK'd by Terrakion (without Bullet Punch) as well as being countered by what ever the other Team decides to use to counter it.
Fight/Ice in general is kinda easy to respond to when you know exactly what you are dealing with (Bro, Starmie, Jelli are just the ones off the top of my head) which is why I'm not too sold on BU Conk, either. Would SubPunch work any better? I know Conk is strong but Dpunch isn't and the +1 boost isn't too threatening either. (Just a suggestion though, feel free to discount it as I didn't look at any calcs here.)
awwww man i was gonna post conkeldurr! needless to say my full support is behind it. oh and as melee mewtwo says, lucario is a really good pokemon most of the time but it sucks in ctp because the opponent knows its moveset and thus can just choose the appropriate counter, then suddenly luke is a non issue and we've just wasted a teamslot. so let's avoid that sort of business
That's because he edited his post so that it would make Luke look more appealing by adding coverage, but now it lost its only way of hitting hard by letting go of SD.
I thought about suggesting Garchomp, but that makes us really weak to things with BoltBeam, specifically Thundurus-T and Starmie. Starmie would be a great pick for Team 2 since it has good coverage and can check all of the Pokémon on Team 1 (assuming we do choose Garchomp). Maybe YacheChomp would work, but I'm not sure...
I think Golurk is still a really solid choice for all the reasons M.Mewtwo brought up last time. Its usually an "eh" pokemon because its really only good if the opponent definitely is packing a Terrakion. Which is this case it is :)
Lucario encourages Team #2 to pick Jellicent, which is going to a) be hell to switch into and b) shut down Landorus if it chooses to be specially defensive. Id rather not encourage Team #2 to pick Jellicent especially when there are potentially much better options instead. If you REALLY wanted to go for a Lucario, id prolly run an Agility set instead, with CC / Crunch / IP as your moves and play it that way.
Lucario encourages Team #2 to pick Jellicent, which is going to a) be hell to switch into and b) shut down Landorus if it chooses to be specially defensive. Id rather not encourage Team #2 to pick Jellicent especially when there are potentially much better options instead. If you REALLY wanted to go for a Lucario, id prolly run an Agility set instead, with CC / Crunch / IP as your moves and play it that way.
This is also why we want Payback on that Conkeldurr, badly. Ice Punch Conkeldurr is nice in the normal metagame I guess, but Payback is neutral most of the times where Ice Punch would hit for SE damage (and sometimes is SE too) and avoids Jellicent completely neutering the set. As already said, Jellicent does not even need to be defensive, so Team 2 could even gain another answer to Landorus (Jellicent already walls Slowbro and cares very little of Thunder Wave) while stopping Conkeldurr from doing its job. If Jellicent decides to run Taunt, Conkeldurr can't even set up BUs on it, but I guess it's not even necessary since Jellicent can just Toxic stall or nuke to death with Night Shade / Shadow Ball.
Fight/Ice in general is kinda easy to respond to when you know exactly what you are dealing with (Bro, Starmie, Jelli are just the ones off the top of my head) which is why I'm not too sold on BU Conk, either. Would SubPunch work any better? I know Conk is strong but Dpunch isn't and the +1 boost isn't too threatening either. (Just a suggestion though, feel free to discount it as I didn't look at any calcs here.)
I'm really not sure what to say about SubPunch Conkeldurr, I have no experience with it because I generally prefer Bulk Up. Because I know exactly where Bulk Up stands I'll keep it as it is for now. However, if you (or anyone else for that matter) brings a compelling argument I'll be sure to change it.
This is also why we want Payback on that Conkeldurr, badly. Ice Punch Conkeldurr is nice in the normal metagame I guess, but Payback is neutral most of the times where Ice Punch would hit for SE damage (and sometimes is SE too) and avoids Jellicent completely neutering the set. As already said, Jellicent does not even need to be defensive, so Team 2 could even gain another answer to Landorus (Jellicent already walls Slowbro and cares very little of Thunder Wave) while stopping Conkeldurr from doing its job. If Jellicent decides to run Taunt, Conkeldurr can't even set up BUs on it, but I guess it's not even necessary since Jellicent can just Toxic stall or nuke to death with Night Shade / Shadow Ball.
I definitely thought about Jellicent when choosing between Ice Punch and Payback, it was the main factor holding me back from going with Ice Punch. So far it seems people prefer Ghost / Fighting coverage over Ice / Fighting, so I'll go ahead and switch to Payback. If anyone wants it changed back then convince me :)
the reality is any conkeldurr that only gets one coverage move is going to be very exploitable and have counters that have no problem switching in against it endlessly. i think we should be especially conscious of selecting something that does not get completely owned by jellicent given that jellicent already takes on slowbro and landorus pretty comfortably. something that resists rock and can take x-scissor is definitely a good start since we can afford to throw slowbro into terrakion pretty recklessly provided we have a good rock resist.
what i want is something that is going to scare away zapdos after it hopefully takes u-turn + stealth rock. if we can select something that consistently forces it out like this, landorus will be able to muscle its way through zapdos and then hopefully destroy a few things before being revenge killed. i guess it is kind of tough to find a rock resist that does beat zapdos and is not walled by jellicent
cb garchomp and guts 'attacker' conkeldurr are probably the best ideas. cb garchomp is basically impossible to wall barring like skarmory and skarmory has to be wary of magnezone or politoed (which boosts garchomp's aqua tail substantially). i think conkeldurr's set could just use ice punch and payback (with no bulk up) while making it slower than the slowest of jellicent as not much walls that off the top of my head. it does suffer in being unable to break through hippowdon and skarmory unless we were to go with iron fist...
too bad both of these have been reserved so my pick is...
jirachi. he kinda struggles to break jellicent and does not scare zapdos that much unless its paralysed. however jirachi would be able to keep up the theme of paralysis though if it were to be added. heres the set i was thinking of:
Jirachi @ Leftovers
Trait: Serene Grace
EVs: 200 HP / 76 Spd / 152 SAtk / 80 Atk
Naive Nature
- Iron Head
- Thunder
- Hidden Power [Ground]
- Icy Wind
there are basically two things in the game that will reliably beat this - hippowdon and gastrodon. oh ferrothorn as well. even they can be beaten with some well-timed flinches though. hippowdon is also walled by slowbro and an opportunity for landorus to come in. unfortunately this jirachi does not exactly force out zapdos but he can always break through it with some flinches right lavos
just an idea... trying to think of rock resists that aren't easily walled is tough
