Based Milotic: Peaked #6 Normal ladder, currently #9 Suspect Ladder

[shaian]

So this is currently my favourite team to play with, and amongst my many (okay, more like 6) original team creations, I would have to say that it's the most based and unorthodox. The idea for this team came about when I was at my friend Brandons house helping him make his first doubles team. He wanted to try using Competitive and couldn't nail down which pokemon to use. I suggested Milotic, since it was a pokemon I used to great success in Spot Doubles, and I wanted to see if it could translate well over in Smogon Doubles. And it did, he went 11-1 as a first timer, and it confirmed to me that Milotic could work. Being able to take advantage of the plethora of Intimidate users in the tier, Milotic becomes a frighteningly powerful special sweeper, almost in an instant, and still has decent bulk.

The Team

Vincenza (Milotic) (F) @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Competitive
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 96 HP / 252 SAtk / 160 Spd
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Ice Beam
- Scald
- Recover
- Protect

The star of this team, and the whole reason for its conception, MILOTIC. The EV's for this set were made to maximize offensive output, outpace 4EV base 100's and to survive a T-Bolt from Mega Manectric, and OHKO back with Scald, as well as survive a Solar Beam from Modest Mega-Charizard Y. I previously ran Mirror Coat over Protect for the Charizard, but 5/5 times I encountered Solar Beam, it crit. So I became jaded, and went with Protect, and haven't looked back. Ice Beam is for coverage, nailing powerful hits on grass, flying and dragons, as well as getting decent damage against Cradily and Gastrodon, which otherwise stop Milotic in its tracks. Recover is to increase Milotics survivability, useful for healing against pokemon that are obviously switching out (shoutout to Landorus-T). The Sitrus Berry is to keep Milotic from going into the red too early.

Mr. Heaty (Heatran) (M) @ Shuca Berry
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 64 HP / 252 SAtk / 192 Spd
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Heat Wave
- Earth Power
- Protect
- Flash Cannon

A slight variation of standard fast-Tran, though the EV's on it are my normal for based-Sub-Tran, I prefer them quite a bit. This one outpaces 4 EV, base 100's, mostly as an insurance against support-Rachi, with T-Wave, as well as bulky Kangas, to name a few off the top of my head. Heat Wave is in there for the usual strong STAB spread move, Earth Power for other Heatrans, especially since I almost guarantee myself to outrun all but Scarf-Trans. Flash Cannon is to snipe Fairy types, though I previously ran Stealth Rocks just to make Chari, Volc and Talonflame (amongst others) easier to deal with, as well as Substitute just to run impromptu Sub-Tran if I ever felt the need to do so.

Happy (Togekiss) (F) @ Safety Goggles
Ability: Serene Grace
EVs: 252 HP / 152 Def / 4 SAtk / 100 SDef
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Air Slash
- Follow Me
- Thunder Wave
- Tailwind

Possibly the most controversial part of the team, the based dual speed control mixed bulk togekiss of infamy. I had tested with 252 Def bold as well as 252 SDef Calm and found both to be underwhelming in regards to the other defence, so I just went mixed. That way it still gets the important survives on both ends, which is what I wanted. The defence EV's let it survive: Stone Edge from Terrakion and Landorus-T, as well as Return from standard Mega Kanga, as well as Iron Head from Genesect, which has given some of my other teams problems, so I felt the need to calc for. The special defence EV's let it survive Thundurus T-Bolts, Mega Manectric T-Bolts, Zapdos T-Bolts etc.. Though I'll probably toy around with the EV's a lot more. And then some more. And some more. And some more. I'll maybe be happy with it one day. As for the moves, Air Slash is for STAB flinch haxing, and gets in decent damage with minimal investment due to Togekiss's naturally good special attack. Follow Me is to get based redirects, keeping the other members safe. Thunder Wave is for when Tailwind isn't the better option, and for when I'll likely have to play the long game. Tailwind is for when I need an immediate speed boost, such as against Scarf-Landos, against Sand Teams with Exca or other situations where paralysis won't be enough. Safety Goggles are to mess with Amoong and Breloom who otherwise give this team some slight headaches.

Kamina (Excadrill) (M) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Mold Breaker
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 Atk / 6 SDef / 252 Spd
Adamant Nature
- Drill Run
- Earthquake
- Iron Head
- Rock Slide

Standard Scarf-Drill. Deals with Charizard, Heatran, Tyranitar, Terrakion, Cobalion (lol), Rotoms W and H, Gardevoir, Togekiss, Bisharp, Cradily and more! Drill Run is to nab pesky Wide Guard users like Aegislash. Rock Slide is for handling Talonflames, Charizards, Thundys and Tornadus and whatever flying types people are using these days. Iron Head and Earthquake are to grab strong STAB damage.

Gods Wings (Talonflame) (M) @ Life Orb
Ability: Gale Wings
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd:
Adamant Nature
- Brave Bird
- Flare Blitz
- Tailwind
- Quick Guard

When starting out in X Y, I wasn't a huge fan of Talonflame. My reasoning is because he's only good for one thing. And I was pretty much right, he would suck if he didn't have Gale Wings, but that's horrible reasoning to not use it. A lot of things would be garbage if it wasn't for one thing. Kanga would suck without it's mega-evo, Charizard was a joke till he got mega-evos. The point is that one thing is all you really need. And being able to abuse STAB based 120 moves and having priority one of them is what makes Talonflame good. A lot of people like using Band-Bird to nab the OHKO on Charizard, but I despise being locked into attacks, and with the bird, I prefer flexibility of Life Orb more than anything. Brave Bird and Flare Blitz are in for obvious reasons (hitting like a truck). Tailwind is in for insurance, as I like having back-up, and it's saved my ass on so many occasions. Quick Guard is to shut down other Talonflames, protect against Fake Out, Prankster abuse, Sucker Punch and others.

Mirajane (Gardevoir) (F) @ Gardevoirite
Ability: Trace
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 6 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hyper Voice
- Psyshock
- Protect
- Trick Room

It wouldn't be a Shaian team if it didn't have based Mega-Gardevoir, undoubtedly my favourite pokemon to use. The EV spread maximizes its offensive output and paired with the speed control on the team, it becomes a frightening late game sweeper. Hyper Voice is for the god like STAB spread damage, and for nabbing OHKO's on Dragons, Fighting types, Bug types and Dark types. Psyshock is to grab physical damage against special walls, and for getting strong hits against Amoong and Venusaur, the 2HKO against Charizard, as well as specially defensive Rotoms. Protect is for protect and Trick Room is for resetting Trick Room, should I ever need to, and for something I like to call the impromptu-Trick Room, which I find is great for a surprise factor against faster teams.

Pairings

1. Milotic + Heatran

Obvious synergy, these 2 pair well with each other, checking for each others weaknesses relatively well, though obviously Conk or Keldeo cause slight problems, those two are handled well by the other members of the team. The goal with this is to lure out pokemon like Landorus with Heatran and swapping in Milotic, which boosts Milotics special attack, and nabbing the OHKO with Scald. Simple enough, and it works quite often. Outside of Lando, Milotic can check things like Garchomp, Rhyperior, Excadrill or Terrakion which all give Heatran problems. And Heatran can check things like Abomasnow, Venusaur, and does reasonably well against Thunderus and other electric or grass types which give Milotic problems.

2. Excadrill + Togekiss (or Talonflame)

Once more, obvious synergy. Excadrill checks all of Togekiss's weaknesses and Togekiss redirects any fighting type moves headed towards Excadrill. Togekiss can also redirect any Will-O's coming towards Excadrill, keeping it healthy enough to keep denting any pokemon in its way. Togekiss can also control the speed on the field, getting T-Waves into other checks like Charizard or set up T-Wind if the opponent wants to run Rain+Swift Swim. It can also spam off Air Slash if it wants to without fear of something like Rotom-W hard countering it, due to Excadrills Mold Breaker Earthquakes. Talonflame does the same as Togekiss, being able to check Excadrills fighting weakness and hitting things like Charizard for massive damage. I just didn't include the gif of it because it's too big and it would make the format ugly.

3. Gardevoir + Heatran or Excadrill

Simplicity in pairings once again works out best. Gardevoir keeps pesky fighting types and Garchomps at bay, and Heatran or Excadrill keep poison and steel types from messing with Gardevoir. The offensive pressure from the combination of Gardevoir and Heatran or Excadrill is incredible and can force a lot of switches. Nothing wants to be on the receiving end of a Pixilate boosted Hyper Voice, and those that don't mind it so much don't want to be on the receiving end of a Earth Power, Heatwave, Iron Head or Drill Run.

Shoutouts

Shoutout to Memoric for making the banner and for helping me learn how to format forum posts

Shoutout to whissp for also helping me out and for being involved in a test battle with this team (whether he knew it or not)

Shoutout to GlassGlaceon for being the homie

Shoutout to KyleCole for being a 10/10 based fig

Shoutout to Electrolyte because he asked and for being hot

and lastly, shoutout to Brandon (aka @Mewtwosexyboy, not sure if you have a forum acc) for inspiring the idea

 

[Electrolyte]

Hello, Shaian! Thank you very much for the shoutout! :]

Alright, so let's take a look at this team. It seems pretty offensive despite its use of defensive Pokemon, which is quite unique, and I see that you're using and taking advantage of Tailwind quite effectively. I'm not really going to comment on defensive structure; Follow Me Togekiss, a high level of offense, and the natural bulk of your Pokemon should be enough in my opinion. However, your offensive strategy seems to be a bit clunky- you're trying to get power and bulk and speed all at the same time but you're not really getting any of them solidly because your investment is spread too thin. Also, there is some slight redundancy between attacking moves, which I will address in my rate.

Just a note before I start. I don't know your playstyle nor do I know how you usually use this team, so I'll be assuming that you use everything you have on this team pretty much as equally frequently as is necessary. The whole structure of this rate is based off of the fact that 1. You use Tailwind in order to achieve sweeps and 2. You are able to keep your Tailwinders active and ready to set it up whenever necessary. If those two things do not apply, then this rate is pretty useless, though you could try it my way and see how it goes. If it does apply, then all for the better :]


First off, I'll address redundancy, because I think the impact will be bigger and most EV tweaks will be made to complement these changes. One thing I already addressed with you is Flash Cannon on Heatran. I find it relatively useless, especially since Fairies are really not a problem at all for your team, and ones that might be (Mega Mawile, Azumarill) are not hit by Flash Cannon very hard anyway. I suggest Stone Edge instead, to hit Mega Charizard Y and Talonflame directly, and also snipe Thundurus forms and Rotom-W for at least more-than-unsignificant damage. The team could use coverage in that area, too, and take some pressure off of Milotic and Excadrill for sponging attacks and revenge killing.

Another thing I want to suggest is ditching Trick Room on Gardevoir. This may seem like a terrible idea on a Tailwind team, but you have the ability to do this because your team is naturally bulky enough to be able to stall out Trick Room. It is a lot more reliable to just simply wait out the Trick Room instead of throwing in your fast, frail Gardevoir and risk taking serious damage. Your team doesn't really have much use for it outside of resetting, either, especially because Heatran, Milotic, Gardevoir, Excadrill, and Talonflame all invest so much in Speed. Thus, I suggest that you use Calm Mind over Trick Room on Gardevoir. With Calm Mind, you can set up against Rotom-W, which is a pretty big threat since Scarf Exca is a pretty unreliable check. Calm Mind also lets you take advantage of the massive amounts of Speed control present in the form of Tailwind on this team, and also helps you sponge hits better should you face Trick Room so that you don't even completely lose out on that end.


Ok, now let's talk about EV spread for a bit. I think Milotic, Heatran, and Gardevoir can ditch all those Speed EVs. I know I just told you to ditch Trick Room and one of my reasons was that everything was naturally too fast, but whether you ditch Trick Room or not, shifting Speed investment is beneficial anyway, so you might as well just listen up.

Milotic: 204 HP / 252 SpA / 52 Spe Modest
First and foremost, outpacing 4 Spe base 100's is relatively useless, especially since things that are usually in that speed tier (bulky Gardevoir, bulky Mega K, Jirachi) can easily shrug off your attacks anyway. Thus, I suggest you shrink that 160 Spe down to 52 Spe- just enough for you to outpace 252 Adamant Scarf Lando-T when you have Tailwind up. When Tailwind is up, that's all you need. When Tailwind is down, you're too slow anyway. So you might as well shift some EVs to bulk, helping you vs Trick Room, helping you stay alive longer, and making your Pokemon more efficient. (You can even shred off more Spe EVs if you want, but I think this is a good place to stay, as Scarf Lando-T could pose a pretty serious threat to your Steel-types and Gardevoir)

Heatran: 236 HP / 252 SpA / 20 Spe Modest
This spread lets you outspeed 252+ Shaymin-S in Tailwind and kill it with fire before it Earth Powers you. Everything else goes back to bulk. Again, you don't have much use for those Speed EVs, and will hopefully be spending most of your time under Tailwind anyway. Why not last longer, especially seeing as you don't have recovery?

Gardevoir: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpDef Modest
Even less Speed, because you simply don't need it here! With Tailwind, 0 Spe Gardevoir outpaces Jolly Scarf Landorus-T and a little bit more, and very few things faster than that are a threat to this team. Max bulk helps give you defensive layers as you set up Calm Mind or try to counter Trick Room. You could also use 136 Spe to outpace 252 Modest Kingdra in Rain and 252 Modest Venusaur in Sun, which could also be useful. I'll leave that up for you to decide.


All of this extra bulk and lowered Speed makes your Pokemon last longer without compensating their Speed or ability to counter threats and hit a wide variety of opponents.


That's all I have to say! Cool team, Shaian, and good luck!