Introduction
Starting with the idea for a Dragonite team, I spent a lot of time chasing down replays and stats on what people were doing with the classic old boy. I found what I think is a really solid core, and tested out different options until I found the best version of the team I could. In this post I will be presenting to you this 4-pokemon core, what it does well, and asking for your help in improving it.
Stop me if you've heard this before, but I don't like using legendaries on my team. The rest of this paragraph could write itself based on what I've seen in this forum already, but I understand that there has to be a balance in competitive Pokemon between the ones you like, and the ones that are effective, otherwise we'd have Pikachu in S-tier on the viability rankings. I really thought about how to balance those two elements, and decided that I really don't want to use the Djinn Pokemon (looking at you Landorus) but I had to keep my options open outside of that. When looking for ways to build a team without Landorus however, I realized how powerful Garchomp was, and how he can take a team in a slightly different direction than Landorus can, which creates some interesting opportunities.
A lot of posts I see on this forum are new players making their first team and while that does more or less describe me, take the kid gloves off because I'm the type of player that puts in the work in both theory crafting and play testing.
Finally, I have to give credit to Storm Zone, and Analytic, because I based a lot of my ideas and the foundation of this strategy off of their replays that I was able to find.
Team Goals
Dragonite must be on the team. If I'm not playing Dragonite, I'm not playing Pokemon.
No Genies. I don't like them, and you can win without them, so I will do that.
A balanced/bulky offense approach that has good defensive switches against threats, while being able to respond with my own offensive pressure at the right time. I'm willing to change direction from this if it makes sense to do so, but balance describes the strategy that I had in mind when starting this team.
Team Building Process, pt.1
This team started with a Dragonite.... but that's not the logical place to start when looking at how this team is built. let's go through the real core of this team.
Garchomp @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Rough Skin
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Earthquake
- Fire Fang
- Toxic
- Stealth Rock
Garchomp is a great place to start building a team. Even with his ice weakness, his neutral defense against Ground means that Garchomp is rarely threatened by an OHKO. He's able to lead against lots of dangerous Pokemon and put them on a timer with toxic, as well as get up stealth rocks early on. Even if he takes some damage from the lead, he can still switch out and back in later on to damage people with Rocky Helmet, and decent speed tier means that he can jump in and take first turn vs a lot of Pokemon in the mid-game. Earthquake STAB is always one of the most powerful assets any Pokemon can have. I've seen a lot of people running Dragon Darts, and I can respect the advantage of that, but I personally found that it wasn't consistent vs Kyurem, and it can't do anything vs Dragapult. Fire Fang, while not fantastic, gave me a little more help vs some defensive Pokemon like Ferrathorn and Rillaboom that helped keep up momentum and aggression.
Mew @ Leftovers
Ability: Synchronize
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Night Shade
- Will-O-Wisp
- Roost
- Taunt
Next up is Mew who plays a defensive pivot role on this team. Based on usage statistics, this may seem like a bit of a strange set to some people. The stats say that Mew is almost always used as a hazard setter right now, and Night Shade isn't even on the usage charts. Well I have to admit, I stole this set from Storm Zone, almost 1:1. I'm using Will-O-Wisp over Thunder Wave, because the check to offensive Pokemon gave Mew more of a role when switching in to threats as a defensive pivot beyond showing up to soak a hit and roost. With the current meta, a Timid Mew's taunt is extremely effective at taking away a lot of Pokemon's ability to set-up or fight back with moves like toxic or thunder wave. Night Shade also has some surprising results. Some of the big defensive threats in the meta like Ferrothorn and Toxapex rely on their defense stats, and have mediocre or low HP. Night Shade gives zero fucks about your defense, and with help from stealth rocks and status or other chip moves was able to create some 3HKO situations. It's not amazing, but it was enough to get other defensive Pokemon to blink first and switch out. Late game however, this won me several games when all the treats were cleared out, Mew was able to 1v1 many Pokemon that lacked a way to hit it super effective and secure a victory. Mew is not perfect, with a weakness to U-Turn and Knock Off, but it's performed very well for me as a defensive Pokemon who has the ability to 1v1 in a pinch.
Bisharp @ Life Orb
Ability: Defiant
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
- Knock Off
- Sucker Punch
- Iron Head
- Assurance
Bisharp activates a much needed offensive presence on the team, with his ability to threaten many annoying Pokemon with dangerous STAB knock off and iron head. The ability to steal turns with good predictions using sucker punch is very powerful, and using that same predictive skill, landing a knock off on a Pokemon switching in vs him changes the dynamic of the matchup. Defensive Pokemon love their items, so taking them away is a game changing element. That paired with his defiant ability has proven extremely valuable by making Bisharp difficult to switch into with Landorus, and his ability to switch into a defog. I feel very confident with the ability to predict and outplay any time Bisharp is on the field... the only problem is safely switching to him in the first place.
Dragonite @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Multiscale
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Relaxed Nature
- Earthquake
- Ice Beam
- Roost
- Heal Bell
It's time to round out the core of this team. I would be lieing to you if I said I fully understood why Dragonite fits into this team here, but based on usage statistics, the replays I've found, and my own testing, I can say that he finds a way. Instead of preaching my ignorance however, lets talk about what Dragonite does! Committed to using him, I had to decide between the Dragon Dance sweeper set and the defensive Roost/Bell set. I found the defensive set was a much better fit for several reasons. First of all, when using the sweeper set, it was extremely difficult to switch into Dragonite. Losing multi-scale to a u-turn or any other move meant losing his best method of setting up DD. On top of that, even a +1 Dragonite is far from guaranteed to out-speed many threats, and so many of my wins ended with a 100%HP Dragonite on the bench who never even saw the field. Instead, using a bulky Dragonite meant that I was able to switch into him more confidently through the match, taking advantage of Multiscale and the advantageous elements of Dragon typing repeatedly. Likewise, the mixed attacking setup of Earthquake + Ice Beam means that Dragonite doesn't care about Landorus intimidate, and can respond or even predict with an Ice-Beam that Lando wants nothing to do with. We're not the only pokemon with a 4x Ice weakness, so it's best to give as good as we get. Without Dragon Dance, I couldn't sweep, but Dragonite could take a very active role in matches and was very useful.
That's the core of the team. There's some changes to be made in the EV's or movesets (firefang? meh) to fix match-ups, but I feel very good about this core in the current meta, and I think it has a lot of potential. At the very least I like it a lot, and I'd like to explore it more.
Team Building Process, pt.2
Now we get to the part of the team that I'm much less confident in. I'm breaking this section up so that you understand my mindset. That said, rules are rules, and we can't post incomplete teams on this forum, so I spent two days on ladder trying different options to find what worked best for me. This is what I came up with.
I felt like I needed another defensive option. Maybe this is because I started with a sweeper Dragonite build before switching to tank, but I like the idea of running balance/bulky more than hyper offense. I may be going in the wrong direction here, but for right now, this is what I did.
Clefable @ Leftovers
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Bold Nature
- Moonblast
- Thunder Wave
- Soft-Boiled
- Stealth Rock
I mentioned with Mew that I was running Will-O-Wisp instead of T-Wave. This is why; Clefable is running T-Wave for status. There weren't too many match-ups that Clefable won outright, but the ability to put up rocks, throw around paralysis, soak up attacks, and play certain matchups with soft-boiled and moonblast, made me feel better about Clefable than the other tanks that I tested in this slot. Corviknight and Slowking didn't seem to do as well here when I tried them. Another big advantage of running Clefable is because I'm using two Dragon pokemon, when my opponent tries to hit them with a dragon-type move, Clefable is able to switch in for free. I was able to win a few games because I outplayed my opponent with a double switch into a Dragon >> Clefable to bait and absorb a draco-meteor from Dragapult, or something similar. Clefable isn't an exciting pokemon, and doesnt generate much momentum or pressure, but it feels like the most consistent defensive option to round out the team's core.
Weavile @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Knock Off
- Ice Shard
- Triple Axel
- Swords Dance
This one was a killer. I needed something very offensive in the last spot and Weavile is who I went with. Again, I can't make the strongest case for Weavile, but that he did the best in my testing of all the options I tried. Nidoking, Zeraora, and Victini made a show of themselves in this slot, but none of them did quite as well. Instead of professing ignorance however, let's talk about what Weavile does for the team. The extra Ice attacks, especially Tripple Axel, is incredible, with OHKO potential on so many things. A standout performance was when an un-boosted Triple Axel (with steal rocks help) OHKO a Tapu Lele that was sweeping my team! The biggest problem that Weavile solves however is speed, which this team struggled against. If not for the problems against speedsters such as Dragapult, there would be a Nidoking in this slot. Priority Ice Shard is something this team severely needed. Not to mention its another Pokemon that can threaten knock off on switches, opening more opportunities vs defensive Pokemon.
Checks and Counters
Dragapult and speed in general is still a huge threat to this team. If I'm able to chip away at them throught the game with stealth rocks, priority moves, and ineffective moves on their switch-in then I have a chance to deal with them at the end. Likewise sometimes its possible to get them with one of my defensive Pokemon into a situation where they're choice locked or otherwise ineffective, and I can stall them out... but its a problem that I've not fully solved yet. Zeraora has not yet been a significant problem for me because of the defensive typing of my Pokemon, but I suspect it could be in the future. As well as Pokemon that out-speed the majority of my team in general.
This one seems to be a problem. It's offensive power is seemingly off the charts. I just try to chip it and get it off the field at all costs, but it usually requires me to outplay my opponent by a considerable margin to defeat this Pokemon.
This thing is it's own tier of problem for me. A common theme you may have noticed for me dealing with my problem matchups is to chip them with entry hazards and other damage. Tornadus usually has boots and regenerator, so it doesn't get chipped. I need more experience vs this Pokemon before I can solve the matchup, but as of right now it's very bad.
Another Pokemon that I can deal with, but it usually trades much better than 1:1 with me. Often I end up in a switch loop vs it where I check it with Clefable, then Kyurem switches out for something, and we go back and forth for a while. I've been able to manage this pokemon by out-playing my opponents, but it feels like a bad matchup that's going to catch up with me sooner or later.
Resistant to most my priority moves, with powerful wall-breaking STAB attacks and priority of his own. Another pokemon that I've been able to play around, but feels like I don't have a good answer to right now
Conclusion
I think I've been able to explain my thought process with this team more or less. Again, I don't want to be that guy that says "I'm new please help me". I'm going to keep working on my team to find something I'm happy with. That said, I still would very much appreciate constructive criticism, and insight from the more experienced players on the forum.
Thank you,
Dredrick
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