Screw the Suspect Test

So I'm trying to hit 2000 so I can vote to keep Sleep Clause in the best tier. This is probably my best team, and I'm at about 1850 right now (literally 1849 lol) and I'm staying in that 1845-1860 range. Anyway, I don't want to bore anyone with teambuilding so onto the team.



Palkia @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Pressure
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature
- Spacial Rend
- Hydro Pump
- Thunder
- Fire Blast

Scarf Palkia is the fastest common scarfer in Ubers other then Darkrai and (lol)Deoxys-A/S. It's coverage is great and it usually saves me from dying to anything locked into Outrage (though obviously I can't switch in). STABs are obvious. Thunder is to 2HKO any Kyogre except max HP and SDef Kyogres, and those can die to anything else on my team. Fire Blast is for Ferrothorn/Forretress because Ferrothorn is annoying and Forretress is whatever, but nice to see stuff die. Also Fire Blast is for enemy Genesects that expect my Genesect to be my only Scarfer, then die (85% of the time)

Genesect @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Download
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spd / 4 SAtk
Hasty Nature
- U-turn
- Ice Beam
- Iron Head
- Explosion

Standard Genesect. U-Turn for momentum, Iron Head because Flinches are very nice to get, Explosion for when an EKiller is setting up, or just to finish the battle, or whenever I need to. Ice Beam is for anything locked into Outrage when I can't waste my Forretress yet (or it's dead) and of course, it's just useful in general.

Forretress (M) @ Red Card
Trait: Sturdy
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Def
Impish Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Rapid Spin
- Volt Switch
- Gyro Ball

2 Steel/Bugs have bad synergy, but this team doesn't mind at all since the Fire Weakness is easily fixed by Kyogre/Palkia. Now the thing with Red Card is that because Darkrai is a HUGE TROLL in this suspect test, and this stops it, and EKiller, since a +4 Brick Break after Rocks does not kill Forretress

Kyogre @ Choice Specs
Trait: Drizzle
EVs: 248 HP / 252 SAtk / 8 Spd
Modest Nature
- Water Spout
- Surf
- Thunder
- Ice Beam

Whale of death. Specs Water Spout 2HKOs EVERYTHING. No. Literally everything. Problem is Kyogre's slow, and Scarf sets are useless with Gene in the meta, since U-Turn will take a lot of power off Water Spout. This Kyogre has 2 jobs, 1 is to kill any physical Arceus, calc any set you normally use (hell, even a Special Arceus at +1) against Surf. His 2nd, and most important is to setup Rain (duh)

Arceus @ Leftovers
Trait: Multitype
EVs: 88 HP / 252 Atk / 168 Spd
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- ExtremeSpeed
- Shadow Claw
- Recover

ExtremeKiller Arceus. Speed EVs are to outspeed base 95s, max Attack Adamant is obvious, and HP cause why not. SD up on anything you want then have fun essentially. Obviously Leftovers is to 1. setup more and have more chances to, and 2. win stall wars while setting up, such as against Leech Seed Ferrothorn, and because it is always a better item on Arceus. I find Recover a very useful move for the same reason as I have Leftovers, and Shadow Claw is chosen alongside ESpeed because Brick Break and EQ leave me 100% walled by Giratina-O, who can die to a +4 Shadow Claw.

Kyurem-B @ Choice Band
Trait: Teravolt
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Adamant Nature
- Fusion Bolt
- Outrage
- Sleep Talk
- Freeze Shock

Underrated threat. OU does not mean you cannot function well in Ubers. The EVs are obvious (though I might have to switch the 4 HP to Defense) Fusion Bolt and Outrage are obvious as well. Sleep Talk is because even before this suspect test I would use it to counter Darkrai/Smeargle. Do you know how much fun it is to stare at your DS waiting for them to setup Nasty Plot after you (what they think was stupid) switched into Kyurem to take a move, then GG you lose get out Darkrai everyone hates you. Freeze Shock is there because he has no other option, and it isn't completely useless, Kyurem has the bulk to pull it off, and the surprise value too. It hits Ferrothorn extremelly hard as well, physically defensive ones take around 80% though obviously it should be used carefully, especially on a CB set (which is Kyurem-B's only set)

Now onto the fun stuff, threat list.

Only notable major threats to this team so far are:

Dialga: Specially Defensive and Bulk Up are huge problems, since I don't have much to hit it that hard, considering I lack Fighting moves.

Ferrowhore: Is more annoying then anything

IMPORTABLE:

Palkia @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Pressure
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature
- Spacial Rend
- Hydro Pump
- Thunder
- Fire Blast

Genesect @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Download
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spd / 4 SAtk
Hasty Nature
- U-turn
- Ice Beam
- Iron Head
- Explosion

Forretress (M) @ Red Card
Trait: Sturdy
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Def
Impish Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Rapid Spin
- Volt Switch
- Gyro Ball

Kyogre @ Choice Specs
Trait: Drizzle
EVs: 248 HP / 252 SAtk / 8 Spd
Modest Nature
- Water Spout
- Surf
- Thunder
- Ice Beam

Arceus @ Leftovers
Trait: Multitype
EVs: 88 HP / 252 Atk / 168 Spd
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- ExtremeSpeed
- Shadow Claw
- Recover

Kyurem (Kyurem-B) @ Choice Band
Trait: Teravolt
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Adamant Nature
- Fusion Bolt
- Outrage
- Sleep Talk
- Freeze Shock
 

Trainer Au

Insert custom title here
You are 6-0'd by substitute Darkrai.
And considering there is no Sleep Clause atm, you need to fix this. Sleep Talk on Gene over Iron Head could work, or making kyu-b scarf with sleep talk and making Palkia Specs/whatever is also an option.

I have a few small nitpick for Gene. Naive>Hasty, you can take E-speeds better if needed and you give opposing Gene's a Spatk boost instead of atk. Gene also does not need max speed, you can run 224 to outspeed DDRay at +1, 228 to outspeed +2 neutral cloyster, or 248 to outspeed scarf Hydriegon.

Sorry it isn't anything major, but I hope I was helpful nonetheless.
 
You really need a way of stopping a well played Darkrai, who is not only ubiquitous, but is fully capable of 6-0ing your team.

Try out Specially Defensive Kyogre with Rest talk, it shuts down most Darkrai completely. I would also recommend less choice users, as Extreme Killer is fully capable of setting up and sweeping your team (Forretress barely even checks it, it just slows it down).

Nice to see CB Kyurem B though, huge threat. Replace Freeze Shock with Ice Beam though, freeze shock is just going to be taken advantage of on a CB set, and Ice Beam still kills the stuff that it's weak to.
 
And considering there is no Sleep Clause atm, you need to fix this. Sleep Talk on Gene over Iron Head could work, or making kyu-b scarf with sleep talk and making Palkia Specs/whatever is also an option.

I have a few small nitpick for Gene. Naive>Hasty, you can take E-speeds better if needed and you give opposing Gene's a Spatk boost instead of atk. Gene also does not need max speed, you can run 224 to outspeed DDRay at +1, 228 to outspeed +2 neutral cloyster, or 248 to outspeed scarf Hydriegon.

Sorry it isn't anything major, but I hope I was helpful nonetheless.
I think Iron Head is important, but I will try it, and I changed the nature and Speed EVs to 224. Specs Palkia also could work, it's just that having a Physical and Special Scarfer seems a lot better.


You really need a way of stopping a well played Darkrai, who is not only ubiquitous, but is fully capable of 6-0ing your team.

Try out Specially Defensive Kyogre with Rest talk, it shuts down most Darkrai completely. I would also recommend less choice users, as Extreme Killer is fully capable of setting up and sweeping your team (Forretress barely even checks it, it just slows it down).

Nice to see CB Kyurem B though, huge threat. Replace Freeze Shock with Ice Beam though, freeze shock is just going to be taken advantage of on a CB set, and Ice Beam still kills the stuff that it's weak to.
I understand what you all are saying about Darkrai, but I have a Sleep Talker and something with Red Card to stop Sub NP, slows it down by switching it out, meaning I can take it down later. As for Kyurem-B I'm going to keep it as CB but try Ice Beam, now that I think about it you're right about that (at first I thought it was stupid to have a SpAtk on a CB pokemon, but it does the save job)
 

Blue Jay

The notorious Good Wife
is a Contributor Alumnus
I agree with Gogeta, so many choice items is never a good thing. It gives your opponent a lot of free turns to take advantage of, to set up, as well as making your team suffer a lot more from entry hazards than it needs to.

Major weaknesses
Extremekiller really threatens your team, as Gogeta already mentioned. It has enough bulk to set up comfortably on the Scarves' weaker attacks or Forretress (which is actually 2HKO'd at +2 with the most offensive variants' EQ and can't really do much anything against Arceus).

CM Ghostceus also finds enough opportunities to set up, and can bulldoze through your team once Kyogre is weakened.

Your team also lacks a reliable counter to Kyogre. Scarf Palkia is a good Pokemon, but not a solid Kyogre counter; no recovery means that it can't repeatedly take any powerful attacks from Kyogre, and if your opponent predicts the switch (which isn't hard, considering team preview reveals that Palkia and Kyogre are your only Pokemon that can take a Water Spout) and uses Thunder, allowing said Kyogre to beat it 1 on 1 or leave it crippled with paralysis.

And as everyone has pointed out, a sub Darkrai (the most common Darkrai at the moment) will screw over your team. A good player will scout Kyurem for sleep talk with a sub after putting it to sleep, and can then just sub until it wakes up, at which point it's locked into Sleep Talk while awake and 100% set up fodder. That Forry is also in no way an answer, as if it gets attacked at all the red card will be gone, making it perfect set up fodder for Darkrai, and you still don't have any long term solutions to it even if red card does activate. Moreover, a subNP set can (and has no reason not to) just put Forry to sleep and then sub+NP until it's +4 behind a substitute (of course putting Forry to sleep whenever it wakes up) and then KO it with 1 Dark Pulse. Red card will phaze it, but the end result will be no Forry and a largely unscathed/full health Darkrai (all the free turns mean a lot of leftovers healing).

And that's just the top 4 threats at the moment. There are various other things which could really hurt your team, but for now these are the main concern. Every team needs some relatively solid ways to deal with the above Pokemon, at least.

Your team as a whole also simply can't deal with an effective stall team. All your Pokemon are only strong physical or special attackers, and worse almost all of them get locked into an attack which means that all the opponent has to do is switch between their physical and special wall and your entire team is walled. Arceus can set up, but it can't avoid being phazed and with leftovers it won't do much to a physical wall at +2, which is the highest a competent player will ever let it get. Your team is also really weak to entry hazards, as choice Pokemon need to switch a lot, only 1 Pokemon has any recovery, all of them are grounded and none of them resist SR.

Now, I'm not just going to criticize your team without offering improvements.

Improvements

Skarmory over Forretress
Forretress currently isn't doing all that much for you. It carries SR, which all teams should have, but many Pokemon can do that. It can spin, but spinning is not only difficult to pull off (spinblockers are not uncommon, and you risk being set-up fodder), but your team also doesn't really need spin support. Yes, I just said the team is very weak to entry hazards, but that can solved by reworking its build in a way that could improve it in general (less choice users, more airborne Pokemon). Volt switch and gyro ball add almost nothing to the team. To make things worse, lots of Pokemon can comfortably set up on Forretress and then proceed to sweep.

Skarmory can match it for bulk and also has comparably great defensive typing, so you don't lose your dragon type resist. It can run taunt, can phaze, has access to reliable recovery, and can set up SR/Spikes. Forretress' main advantages over it are Rapid Spin and Toxic Spikes, neither of which is important for your team. Skarmory also reliably deals with Ekiller, which can sweep your current team, with Whirlwind (so long as Ekiller isn't their last Pokemon) or Toxic.

Latias over Palkia
Your team runs too many choice items and lacks a reliable way of dealing with Kyogre. Latias helps with both options. With reliable recovery, massive SpD and resistance to Kyogre's strongest attacks, it can wall any Kyogre to no end, while hitting it hard with Grass Knot/Thunder. Not only that, but it's also quite fast and powerful in its own right, making it an excellent offensive pivot in addition to being possibly the best Kyogre counter. You also really don't need 2 scarfed Pokemon. A scarfmon's main purpose is to revenge kill relatively frail and fast attackers by outspeeding and OHKOing them. Genesect does that quite well alone.

Rayquaza over Kyurem-B
Again, there are just so many disadvantages to choice items, that you don't really want to run more than two. And while CB Kyurem-B is certainly powerful, you'll find that Rayquaza won't disappoint on that part either. As I mentioned earlier, a stall team will wall you forever, as it can just switch its special wall into special attackers (Chansey is not in fact 2HKO'd by SpecsOgre, not even a full power Water Spout) and physical walls into physical attackers. Therefore, your team needs a wallbreaker. Either MixQuaza or SDQuaza is great for this. Come in on something you scare out/that can't hurt you (in the case of SDQuaza) or anything you outspeed that isn't a full health Lugia (in the case of MixQuaza) and start blasting holes into the opponent's team. Almost nothing walls these sets, so the only way of taking care of them is to revenge kill them with something faster that doesn't die to Extremespeed. More importantly though, these sets successfully lure and destroy physical walls, opening the opponent's team up to Arceus' sweep.

Rayquaza also gives you a way to deal with weather sweepers such as Kabutops and Omastar, which would currently wreak havoc on your team (Air Lock makes their swift swim useless, allowing Rayquaza to outspeed and destroy them).

Final Thoughts
I realize that I'm proposing a lot of changes, but the overall dynamic of the team is the same (the Pokemon fill quite similar roles, it's still a highly offensive team, etc) and these changes should really help you deal with some major threats and streamline your team as a whole.

I'm aware that I mentioned CM Ghostceus and Darkrai as major threats that teams need an answer for without suggesting solutions, but I do have my reasons. Firstly, I strongly believe that sleep clause will be retained (I will certainly to vote for it) and with sleep clause Darkrai no longer needs a solid counter. Secondly, there is no simple catch-all counter that would suit your team (hydration/insomnia Pokemon generally suck and don't fit in a highly offensive team) and using things like resttalk Pokemon doesn't work for your team either. As for CM Ghostceus, few Pokemon really counter it; the best options are Chansey and Darkrai, neither of which fits into the team I'm proposing. However, it can only set up on Latias and Genesect, really, and if you can toxic it with Skarmory it'll go down eventually. A healthy SpecsOgre may also be able to muscle through its boosts if it catches it early. Highly offensive teams like this can afford not to have solid counters for things, so long as there is a way of dealing with them.

This was a rate assuming the Ubers meta with the sleep clause. If you want a team that will succeed in the suspect ladder, I'm afraid you'll be best off starting from scratch; most otherwise perfectly viable teams simply cannot handle a well played Darkrai right now.
 
This isn't for the suspect meta, but it's what we have to put up with for now. I think you're right about Ghostceus (haven't seen any recently most likely because of Sub Darkrai) but I will try what you said, with Mono attacking Latias, Wallbreaker Rayquaza, and Skarm, though SR being up and Rayquaza needing to switch often could be a problem, still gives me a Dragon resist which could make up for no Spin, and I do completely wall EKiller without Brick Break. I'll post more tommorrow with how it goes.
 

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