Air Mail Blissey!

[Epic Cherubi]

I recently learned that when a pokemon holding Air Mail is Tricked, it automatically fails. Had this actually been implemented into Shoddy, it would be a revolutionary item.

@ Leftovers
Impish
252 HP / 176 Defense / 80 Special Defense

Earthquake
Ice Fang
Slack Off
Stealth Rock

Lead Hippowdon sets off a sandstorm and attempts to lay rocks. Against Aerodactyl and Gliscor leads I often just Ice Fang for a 2HKO as they Taunt me. EVs make lead ape Fire Blast a 3HKO on average, 2HKOing only 10% of the time factoring in accuracy and burn rate. I also survive Mixape Grass Knot all of the time and +2 Lucario Close Combat 97% of the time with Stealth Rocks. Swampert Ice Beam 3HKOs as does Boah Ice Beam if does not run a boosting nature. Gyarados needs Life Orb to guarentee a 2HKO with Waterfall and to even have a chance of OHKO has to have used Dragon Dance once and be holding Life Orb.

@ Shed Shell
Impish
252 HP / 80 Defense / 176 Special Defense

Brave Bird
Spikes
Whirlwind
Roost

Set is obvious and standard, but the EVs can be explained. Relaxed 56 Special Attack Swampert Hydro Pump and Roosting Earthquake are both 3HKOs. Blissey Flamethrower / Thunderbolt do even less damage, barely doing 40% max. Scizor Choice Band Superpower may 3HKO but this means I can either Roost it off on the second hit, or Brave Bird Scizor to death. Specsmence Draco Meteor always 3HKOs, as does +1 Adamant Salamence LO Outrage.

@ Air Mail
Calm
80 HP / 252 Defense / 176 Special Defense

Wish
Protect
Toxic
Flamethrower

Same EVs I've always used, I just never saw any reason to change them. Wish / Protect doesn't work THAT well in the sand with Air Mail, so I might replace them for Softboiled and Aromatherapy / Thunderbolt / HP Ground / Seismic Toss. Protect is nice for stalling out Poison and Sandstorm though and thanks to Air Mail making Blissey immune to Trick she is practically immortal to most special attackers. Air Mail lets Blissey switch in for free against Latias, Rotom, Starmie, Celebi and Gengar and easily eliminate most sets, barring a few the rest of the team covers.

@ Leftovers
Relaxed
252 HP / 48 Defense / 208 Special Defense

Gyro Ball
Payback
Toxic Spikes
Rapid Spin

EVs allow Forretress to shrug off anything Swampert has, while guarenteeing lead Mamoswine always 4HKOs with Earthquake. Stops "Cro" Latias and wipes out non-HP Fire Gengar. Weavile, Metagross, Scizor and many choiced pokemon are setup bait for Forretress. Toxic Spikes helps wipe out Blissey, Tyranitar, Celebi, Starmie and Infernape, who otherwise I would have a lot of trouble breaking. Gyro Ball has been useless, so I may replace it for Earthquake to hit Infernape, Lucario, Metagross, Tyranitar and Heatran with. As opposed to what Gyro Ball hits, which is what.. Weavile? Aerodactyl? lol.

@ Leftovers
Timid
252 HP / 252 Speed / 4 Defense

Calm Mind
Roar
Dragon Pulse
Recover

Anti-Calm Minder, and good Heatran wall. Easily Calm Minds alongside Suicune, Celebi, Jirachi and Cresselia then Roars the poke away and sweeps. Scizor is a HUGE threat here, but keeping Latias hidden normally lets me outlast common Pursuiters. With Toxic Spikes down Latias can run through most stall teams, assuming it can avoid Blissey's poison. Stops Infernape too. I might replace Dragon Pulse with Surf due to the ability to better hit Tyranitar and Scizor, but then Suicune could do terrible damage to me.

@ Leftovers
Timid
248 HP / 72 Defense / 188 Speed

Discharge
Will-O-Wisp
Rest
Sleep Talk

So much has trouble switching in on Rotom, even Tyranitar often eats a burn. My best answer to Lucario if Hippowdon is hurt but also stops Scizor is his tracks. EVs outrun Adamant Lucario, although I wish I had other ways around him. Not running Bold with max Defense causes me to lose a huge amount of durability. The speed I run outruns Lucario, Timid Heatran and nothing more so it might just be worth it to run max defense and rely on Hippowdon to take Lucario. On the other hand, Lucario can run rampant through the team without speed EVs..

 

[Curtains]

This team looks familiar.... Take air mail off of blissey :/. Put leftovers becasue blissey need the extra hp .If you are scared of trick put a choice scarf user on the team. Therefore trick is terminated.

 

[Epic Cherubi]

This team looks familiar....

Stall???

Take air mail off of blissey :/. Put leftovers becasue blissey need the extra hp .If you are scared of trick put a choice scarf user on the team. Therefore trick is terminated.

You're missing the point of Air Mail. Trick will have no effect on Blissey while holding the item. Blissey can switch on most variants of Starmie, Gengar etc. with minimal fear instead of trying to "predict around the Trick" which isn't a 100% safe bet.

 

[The SPrinkLer]

I don't know why you're running Forretress and Skarmory, which is quite unorthodox on stall teams, and you're already spreading poison with Blissey. I'd run ScarfRachi over Skarmory, and Leftovers on Blissey. ScarfRachi will allow you to have a safe switch in to the aforementioned common users of Trick, like Latias and Gengar. ScarfRachi also provides a reliable check to Salamence, Tyranitar,and Lucario, among others. I'd also change Rotom's spread to 252 hp/ 120 def/ 136 spd Bold, because you'd have an effective Lucario check in Jirachi and don't need to outspeed it. I'd run the moves Fire Punch, Ice Punch, Iron Head, and Trick on Jirachi. I'd run max speed and a Jolly Nature to tie with other 100's. I hope this helps, and good luck with the team!

Edit: Actually, over Forretress would be better in my opinion. Skarmory is a lot more reliable on a stall team from experience, and I probably wasn't thinking that well. Sorry.

 

[Taang]

Hmm. Pretty good team here and I certainly like the originality. I would have to agree with Sprinkles suggestions changing Skarmory to ScarfRachi as Forretress & Skarmory is a redundant duo. My suggestion is to change Hippowdon to Tyranitar for a couple of reasons. Firstly, Tyranitar can do almost all the things that Hippowdon is doing but with a better chance of taking out opposing leads. Roserade, Smeargle, Azlef are all leads that Hippowdon just cannot handle and Tyranitar can take them all out with relative ease, here's the set:

Tyranitar @ Lum Berry
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 HP/126 Atk/12 Spd/120 SDef
Careful nature (+SDef, -SAtk)
- Stealth Rock
- Stone Edge
- Rest
- Pursuit

Taking from Philip7086's "Team of Torment" this set is EVd just enough to do 95% lead Roserade taking the sleep with Lum, and letting the sandstorm finish her off. Rest will give you survivability and allowing you to keep Tyranitar longer. Pursuit lets you finish off Azelf and many other Pokemon. Tyranitar will also give you your needed Sandstorm that helps you get residual damage.

Lastly, I disagree with suggestion of Leftovers on Blissey simply because this is the inspiration of the team. Although I'd personally go with Leftovers, you obviously like the idea of being able to switch into Trick so changing that is kind of pointless. If you play on Shoddy defiantly run Leftovers though. ;]

Nice team and Good Luck!

 

[Itsuki]

Hey Epic Cherubi, pretty cool team you have here. As Sprinkles said Scarf Jirachi might do some good for this team over Skarmory. You could ditch Trick and just use a full offensive set. This will cover a lot more threats but leave you vulnerable to stat uppers such as CM Suicune but it seems Latias helps with that.

Jirachi @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Serene Grace
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spe / 4 HP
Jolly nature (+Spe, -SpA)
- Iron Head
- Fire Punch
- Thunderpunch
- Ice Punch

Jirachi basically becomes a second check to Tyranitar, Gyarados, Salamence, Latias, and Lucario however you cannot OHKO Lucario without some damage as Fire Punch will be doing 65.25% - 77.30%. However if you would like another suggestion to countering the standard Lucario Gyarados is a fine option with the set of:

Gyarados @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 Spe
Impish nature (+Def, -SpA)
- Waterfall
- Rest
- Sleep Talk
- Roar

You can choose to run a few Speed EVs to outrun other Gyarados to the Roar. Gyarados's ability Intimidate comes in handy when taking on threats like MixMence, DD Gyarados (Stone Edge hurts), Heatran (LO stallbreakers can be a real threat to most stall teams) and the aforementioned Lucario.

If you go with either of these Pokemon over Skarmory use Spikes over Gyro Ball on Forretress and Shed Shell unless you don't fear/encounter Magnezone a lot. Also Air Mail on Blissey seems too paranoid about Trick. You can always let Jirachi or a weakened Pokemon (if you have Gyarados) take the Trick.

So here you can opt towards using your current Rotom or the more defensive Rotom. If you find your current EV spread better I suggest Thunderbolt / Will-O-Wisp / Shadow Ball / Rest or Light Screen over it to take on Pokemon such as Gliscor, opposing Rotom, and a few others that the standard Rotom usually has trouble with. Also a minor nitpick on the EVs 248 HP / 72 Def / 188 Spe would be better imo due to the fact that it decreases residual damage by 1 and helps since your running Hippowdon on your team. However if you want a bulkier set the current moveset you have with the exception of Thunderbolt over Discharge (although if you feel that you can safely pass Wishes/don't fear status to Rotom try out the aforementioned moveset I posted for Rotom) with the EVs 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 Spe sounds good although some people tend to run Special Defense EVs just to take Starmie's Surf/Hydro Pump better and some other Special Attacks.

Hope I helped!

@ Taang - Tyranitar and Hippowdon play 2 different roles though. Hippowdon is the teams Tyranitar counter. If the opponent uses a DD Tyranitar or MixTar it can make a few holes in the team.

 

[Epic Cherubi]

So drop Skarmory for Scarf Jirachi? That can work. Spikes over Gyro Ball on Forretress too? But I feel like I'd be putting too much pressure on Forretress. I doubt he will find five free turns..

Changing Rotom's EVs is fine.

I'm not sure about changing Air Mail yet. On one had all my testing has been on Shoddy running Leftovers, but even when trying to predict Trick (Rotom or Forretress normally take it) its never a 100% safe answer. Air Mail is an impossible item on Shoddy and Rotom is impossible on Wifi so.. It probably doesn't matter in the end. But Rotom forms are a huge pain, since they easily throw a Trick into Blissey's face which can cost me the game.

Thank you for the rates! You've all been very helpful. I'll update after I test some changes.

 

[ARandomDude]

Eh there's a reason people put Leftovers on Blissey. With sandstorm, entry hazards, and special attacks, etc, Blissey could well be taking some 40% just coming in. Considering that Wish leaves you helpless against both sandstorm and opposing attacks, you could see Blissey in deep shit even before she's done anything. Typically, when playing stall, you want to make sure your mons don't suffer from your own indirect damage.