Gen 1 [RBY OU] The Substerclef Spectacular

shellderfan1997

shellderfan1997

The following team was the team I made that got me to 1400 elo on my main acc (itsbazs). It was designed to capitalize on Cloyster's damage output while also granting it enough support to function.

The whole gimmick of the following team is pretty simple: It makes use of Clefable as a lead, a "second Exeggutor" if you will, that can potentially make progress in the game without losing your REAL status spreaders later on.


Clefable
- Thunderbolt
- Thunder Wave
- Blizzard
- Sing

The lead. Thunder Wave threatens fast attackers like Tauros and Zam, but its not safe to go for it turn 1 thanks to the likely prescence of Chansey. Thats where Sing comes in. Sing can be used on a predictable Chansey switch to almost immediately bring it out of the game for a good while. Thanks to having 60 base speed, Clef works well versus lead Eggutor and Chansey and can also absorb sleep from Gengar and Jynx to keep your Chansey, and in Gengar's case Exeggutor safe to take care of them later. I will say though, you can maybe drop one of the attacks for Body Slam because without it Clef struggles to break through Chansey. Psychic can also deal some OK damage to Gar and the occasional Victreebel on switch. But I feel like a BoltBlizz set works best here.

Alakazam
- Psychic
- Recover
- Thunder Wave
- Seismic Toss

Alakazam is here primarily to dish out good Psychic damage versus Tauros and Lax if you know Tauros can't take care of them itself. It also has Thunder Wave to para any switch ins, as well as Tauros so your Cloyster can finish it off via Clamp. Seismic Toss is here to ensure that Egg and Jynx aren't truly safe. If Alakazam goes down, you still have a Cloyster if you want to take down Tauros without sending in your own.

Cloyster
- Blizzard
- Clamp
- Explosion
- Substitute

Here's where the "subster" part of this is from. Substitute allows Cloyster to get at least one Clamp up versus Psychics and at least 1 Blizzard up versus Eggutor and Zapdos. Clamp allows you to partial trap switches and switch to a good counter and Cloyster can still 1v1 Tauros incredibly well, if anything even better thanks to the Sub. However, Cloyster still struggles with Zapdos and Jolteon. Barring that, Cloyster primarily plans to come in once the enemy team (tauros doesnt matter much tho) is fully outsped, set up Sub, and use Clamp to get everything into kill range before Blizzing them. Be wary of Zapdos and Tbolt Tauros, however.

Tauros
- Body Slam
- Earthquake
- Blizzard
- Hyper Beam

Tauros.

Chansey
- Ice Beam
- Thunderbolt
- Thunder Wave
- Soft-Boiled

BoltBeam Chansey threatens switchins to both Exeggutor and Starmie alike and Chansey's good HP stat lets it tank at least 1 Drill Peck from Zapdos and throw a Thunder Wave in response, and strike it down with Drill Peck. Not much to say otherwise, its just the BoltBeam Chansey set.

Exeggutor
- Explosion
- Psychic
- Sleep Powder
- Stun Spore

Its the one and only Exeggcuter, the Exeggutive of Eggs, its Exeggutor. Much like Chansey, Eggutor can somehow tank a Drill Peck from Zapdos and respond back with sleep. It can then explode or Stun the switch in. Also, Egg is amazing versus Gengar too, and since Zam isnt fully reliable versus Gar (bc explosion), having a Clef lead helps keep Exeggutor alive in the event that a Gengar DOES pull off the sleep.

Ok theres the team. I feel like the team has a problem with Electrics since it REALLY needs para support and either Cloyster or Tauros alive depending on the Pokemon, but what do you guys think?
 
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Fun team! Got the highest rated win of my short career in my second game with it (1500). Tiny sample trying it, and further, I do not know what I'm talking about, but I went with body slam on clef and it's played well. I also swapped to ref alakazam but with cloyster on the team that's probably unnecessary?

A question: I'm used to playing teams that look to get into snorlax vs chansey, how do you pressure chansey here in the early midgame? In one game clefable sung the chansey switch in and then slammed chansey to death, but mostly I've fished for timing egg explosions which doesn't feel very reliable.
 
Thanks for enjoying the team! Relect Zam is probably unecessary because Cloy exists and stuff, but if you wanna keep your Alakazam safe for the Tauros matchup in case something horrific happens to Tauros/Cloy, it certainly can work. (now that i think of it, running toss might not help with a few things if para spreading and clamp is a huge point of the team, and it isnt much of an improvement against chan compared to psych so yeah)

For trying to pressure Chan, a nuke from Egg is defenitely unreliable, but I'd say the simplest possible approach would be using Clamp with Cloy? You could probably predict a Chansey switch in, and if you do and switch into Cloyster you'll be able to outspeed and get Chansey into either kill range, OR into a worthy range for a Tauros kill with Beam (although that's a bit risky since everything except Jynx and Zam can at LEAST take 1 beam and hit back with sleep, para, whatever).

But yeah, now that I look at it, the team definitely is sort of lacking in the physical department outside of explosion and the cow, which sucks for the Chansey matchups
thanks for the feedback though!
 
shellderfan1997 said:
The following team was the team I made that got me to 1400 elo on my main acc (itsbazs). It was designed to capitalize on Cloyster's damage output while also granting it enough support to function.

The whole gimmick of the following team is pretty simple: It makes use of Clefable as a lead, a "second Exeggutor" if you will, that can potentially make progress in the game without losing your REAL status spreaders later on.


Clefable
- Thunderbolt
- Thunder Wave
- Blizzard
- Sing

The lead. Thunder Wave threatens fast attackers like Tauros and Zam, but its not safe to go for it turn 1 thanks to the likely prescence of Chansey. Thats where Sing comes in. Sing can be used on a predictable Chansey switch to almost immediately bring it out of the game for a good while. Thanks to having 60 base speed, Clef works well versus lead Eggutor and Chansey and can also absorb sleep from Gengar and Jynx to keep your Chansey, and in Gengar's case Exeggutor safe to take care of them later. I will say though, you can maybe drop one of the attacks for Body Slam because without it Clef struggles to break through Chansey. Psychic can also deal some OK damage to Gar and the occasional Victreebel on switch. But I feel like a BoltBlizz set works best here.

Alakazam
- Psychic
- Recover
- Thunder Wave
- Seismic Toss

Alakazam is here primarily to dish out good Psychic damage versus Tauros and Lax if you know Tauros can't take care of them itself. It also has Thunder Wave to para any switch ins, as well as Tauros so your Cloyster can finish it off via Clamp. Seismic Toss is here to ensure that Egg and Jynx aren't truly safe. If Alakazam goes down, you still have a Cloyster if you want to take down Tauros without sending in your own.

Cloyster
- Blizzard
- Clamp
- Explosion
- Substitute

Here's where the "subster" part of this is from. Substitute allows Cloyster to get at least one Clamp up versus Psychics and at least 1 Blizzard up versus Eggutor and Zapdos. Clamp allows you to partial trap switches and switch to a good counter and Cloyster can still 1v1 Tauros incredibly well, if anything even better thanks to the Sub. However, Cloyster still struggles with Zapdos and Jolteon. Barring that, Cloyster primarily plans to come in once the enemy team (tauros doesnt matter much tho) is fully outsped, set up Sub, and use Clamp to get everything into kill range before Blizzing them. Be wary of Zapdos and Tbolt Tauros, however.

Tauros
- Body Slam
- Earthquake
- Blizzard
- Hyper Beam

Tauros.

Chansey
- Ice Beam
- Thunderbolt
- Thunder Wave
- Soft-Boiled

BoltBeam Chansey threatens switchins to both Exeggutor and Starmie alike and Chansey's good HP stat lets it tank at least 1 Drill Peck from Zapdos and throw a Thunder Wave in response, and strike it down with Drill Peck. Not much to say otherwise, its just the BoltBeam Chansey set.

Exeggutor
- Explosion
- Psychic
- Sleep Powder
- Stun Spore

Its the one and only Exeggcuter, the Exeggutive of Eggs, its Exeggutor. Much like Chansey, Eggutor can somehow tank a Drill Peck from Zapdos and respond back with sleep. It can then explode or Stun the switch in. Also, Egg is amazing versus Gengar too, and since Zam isnt fully reliable versus Gar (bc explosion), having a Clef lead helps keep Exeggutor alive in the event that a Gengar DOES pull off the sleep.

Ok theres the team. I feel like the team has a problem with Electrics since it REALLY needs para support and either Cloyster or Tauros alive depending on the Pokemon, but what do you guys think?
Click to expand...
I really like the Tauros.
 
I agree with hehehehclefairy in that this team looks incredibly awkward into Chansey, and can probably use a Lax. Clamp is just not reliable as a plan for Chansey due to its terrible accuracy, missing and getting paralysed seems like it would undermine the team greatly.

The other thing I'll note is that your reasoning behind including Zam is perhaps a little askew. Although it's a fantastic para spreader, it's really not great as a tool against Lax/Tauros- its terrible physical bulk means it dies to any hax, while Lax has far greater tolerance for hax, and Tauros' hax is more valuable (getting a paraslam wins the matchup).

All things considered, I'd probably drop Zam for Lax, I'd personally lean towards AttackLax, though there's plenty of room to experiment imo. ReflectLax doesn't seem necessary though, since you already have a pretty bulky team, so I'd prioritise offense

I'm also a bit unsure of the lead set. Given that a lead is going to be seeing a lot of Jynx/Zam, I'm tempted to say that BSlam might be better, but that's not to say BlizzBolt is bad. You might also consider Hypno- I don't necessarily think that it's better, but it does a lot of the things that you're wanting from Clef. It's also better into Lax due to having a decently powerful STAB. I'm also curious as to what your typical lines are for lead Clef (e.g. into Star/Zam), and how valuable Sing is to the set- potentially its lack of reliability could be an issue, but I haven't used lead Clef in a loooong time lol
 
Now that I think of it, dropping Zam in turn for Lax definitely helps greatly with both actually getting stuff done with Chansey, but also Zam doesn't win vs physical attackers as much as Lax does so there's that too.

I also DID consider using Hypno over Clef for the lead but I ultimately decided otherwise, not because that would mean renaming the team into "substerpno" or something odd like that but generally because while Sing is less accurate than Hypnosis, Clef has a tad bit better physical bulk meaning it can hold its own versus Tauros/Rhydon a bit better. Also, STAB Body Slam. (now that i think of it, stab slam helps a lot with pressuring Chansey). Additionally, Clef generally has a larger and more flexible movepool and more importantly, actual non-Psychic coverage, which Hypno lacks in.

As for what I do with lead Clef once a match begins, its usually just an immediate turn 1 Sing. It directly pressures both Chansey switches for those who expected a T wave, as well as Exeggutor switches which I've been seeing a lot on ladder recently, presumably as counterplay to Chansey switches. However, if its paired against a sleep inducer (Jynx, Gengar, Egg) I simply stay in and click Thunder Wave since I know they won't be able to get anything done unless they land the sleep since Clef is so slow. But if Clef DOES avoid a sleep, the para allows it to get some progress made on the enemy team.
 
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