Introduction
Hello, I've been entering gaming tournaments as "Geo" for a little bit now and I'm reletively new to competetive pokemon (started early x/y). The past few months I've been focusing on team building and tend to lean towards an offensive play style. I finally decided to give RMT a go. Thank you in advanced for any help you provide :)
I wanted to build this team around a lead scolipede as I haven't really run scolipede before. The main playstyle revolves around weakening checks to thundurus or mega scizor so they can sweep late game.
The Team
Scolipede @ Focus Sash
Ability: Speed Boost
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Toxic Spikes
- Spikes
- Endeavor
- Pin Missile
As stated above, I wanted to run lead scolipede offense. This is a rather standard lead with focus sash to get a guarnteed turn for hazards, and often two because of speed boost. Endeavor is for weakening opposing pokemon after getting hit and pin missile cleans up pokemon after endeavor, or privides a decent stab move for hitting lead azelf or other psychic types. The only time I don't lead scolipede is if the opposing team has a mega diancie/ sableye, or if the opposing team easily removes hazards without prior pressure.
Gengar @ Life Orb
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Shadow Ball
- Sludge Wave
- Focus Blast
- Hex
Gengar is my spin blocker and provides nice stab coverage. Shadow ball and sludge wave are always good moves on gengar, and focus blast provides much need coverage against dark types like ttar and bisharp. My fourth move could have been substitute, wisp, or disable, but I went with hex in order to hit pokemon who switch into toxic spikes harder. For example hex lets me 2HKO physically defensive mega sableye and tank chomp when I otherwise could not. I didn't replace shadowball entirely with hex in order to hit pokemon I wouldn't be able to status to easily like latias and mega metagross (even though it's a speed tie).
Thundurus @ Life Orb
Ability: Defiant
EVs: 68 Atk / 188 SpA / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
- Thunderbolt
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Knock Off
- Superpower
Thundurus is inculded to punish defog when I cannot prevent it. Thundurs also gives me a nice check to birds and mega pinsir. I went with a mixed set as it benefits my team the most. The given attack EVs allow knock off to OHKO latios after stealth rocks and defensive ttar with super power after a spike. Super power is also a clean OHKO on drill. After maxing speed with a positive nature to outspeed base 110 pokemon like the latis, the rest of the EVs go into sp.atk in order to hit harder: OHKOing keldeo and mega pinsir with thunderbolt as well as 2HKOing physically defensive zapdos after rocks.
Garchomp @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Rough Skin
EVs: 252 HP / 164 Def / 76 SpD / 16 Spe
Impish Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Dragon Tail
- Fire Blast
This is a standard rocky helmet tankchomp. Garchomp is included to be a reliable bird check as well as punish pokemon who hit physically or like to u-turn for momentum. It is also my rocker. The speed EVs are to outspeed max speed base 60 pokemon like sylveon. The Special Defensive EVs are to live max special attack life orb thundurus hp ice, and after maxing HP, the rest of the Evs go into defense to allow more switch ins for rocky helmet + rough skin damage. Earthquake is a solid stab move and hits the likes of excadrill and bisharp, while dragon tail provides phasing to prevent being set up on. I run fire blast in spite of the - sp.atk nature because it hits scizors and ferrothorns harder than I could otherwise.
Scizor-Mega @ Scizorite
Ability: Technician
EVs: 216 HP / 96 Atk / 140 SpD / 56 Spe
Adamant Nature
- U-turn
- Swords Dance
- Bullet Punch
- Roost
When I got to this slot I originally wanted to run a bulky mega altaria. However, I realized my team lacked priority and lati switch ins. Mega scizor cured both of these problems wonderfully. Swords dance may seem counter intuitive with u-turn but u-turn allows scizor to have an early game presence while it can still clean up late game with swords dance bullet punch. Roost provides recovery to take hits better and set up on certain mons. The given HP and SpeDef Evs allow scizor to live a draco meteor and -2 hp fire from life orb latios so it can then roost. The given speed EVs outspeed univested base 80 pokemon like venusaur and mandibuzz. The rest of the EVs go into attack for power.
Keldeo @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Justified
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Scald
- Secret Sword
- Hydro Pump
- Icy Wind
My team was looking weak to faster threats such as specifically mega lopunny. Choice scarf keldeo checks lopunny really well as well as checking other scarfed pokemon like landorus-t and kyurem-b. The dual water stab of scald and hydro pump are to provide reliability and power respecitively. Scald also has that nice burn chance to try to weaken slowbros, latis, and other water types that like swtiching in. For my last move I contemplated running HP bug for finishing off latis, slowbros, and starmies, but I went with icy wind to guaranteed 2HKO tankchomp. The speed drop can also help in certain situations.
Conclusion
Just to reierate, this is an offensive team built around getting hazards up and pressuring. I may not have switch ins to every threat in the metagame, but I have yet to run into a glaring weakness that one cannot play around (hopefulyl I'm not missing too much). I really look foward to improvements. Thank you so much for reading my first RMT.
