Would I? Not especially...
I know there's a rule about unfinished streaks but I kind of don't care, lol
Hello, Smogon Maisoners. I haven't forgotten about you, or this thread, even if I have such little time to engage you all and myself the way I used to (90% of my posts are in Tower/Frontier/Subway threads). I still feel some weird, irrational obligation to play this game even when "I have better things to do" (don't we all), but one last go wouldn't hurt anyone, right?
Right. Anyway, I tried to reach Cardio's impressive 363-win streak with teams like Greninja/Aegislash/Garchomp, Haxorus/Aegislash/Greninja and Kangaskhan/Aegislash/Hydreigon, even though Hydreigon sucked in BW and is worse now before even accounting for Fairies but since they resist all 18 moves "Hydraegis" was too sexy to pass up. You would think. It still sucked because the team really, really hates status, and Greninja in the first team, as marvelous as Greninja is, does not have the proper support for it like Starmie seemed to in prior generations (and Sturdy Donphan and Golem handcuffing Aegislash is awful).
I got to 178 with Hax/Aegi/Ninja once and lost, and wasn't surprised, because all my teams sucked and didn't have the synergy needed to go real far. I began to question whether my DD Haxorus/Bulky SD Scizor/LO Starmie "Bullet Train" team of BW's Subway was really so outdated just because there are Fairy types now. I was incredibly satisfied with that team in BW—the only thing I didn't like was how Starmie, as much as I love it (my second-favorite poke ever in large part to how good it's been to me in ingame play dating all the way back to Stadium 2), seemed to come up just short on key pokemon like Hippowdon and Volcarona. So I bred a Haxorus and I played a lot of battles with that second team above, and it wasn't long in December that the light bulb went off, and I realized what I really needed. And that was Suicune.
Replace Starmie with Suicune on the above team. I had always wanted to do this in BW because Suicune is hilariously reliable, and I did briefly, but Cune didn't fare very well against Garchomp4, which is a bitch with its Focus Sash and could kill Suicune with a CH +2 Earthquake (after I switch out lead Haxorus). Thanks to a very welcome mechanics change in BW, this is no longer possible:
196/252 Bold Suicune
vs. 252 Jolly Garchomp +2 CH Earthquake : 169 - 199 84.5% - 99.5%
Pretty convenient, huh? Since CHes only do 1.5x damage and not 2x, I don't have to worry about Suicune taking 113% minimum from this admittedly not-that-haxy possibility (it's a single CH, after all, and you don't get to complain about those if your interests lay beyond the Starf or even the Lansat berry). But this is even more convenient than you may realize. The reason I have 196 HP EVs on Suicune is because I have 60 Speed EVs, which is mandatory. They put Bold 31 Spe IV Suicune at 113 speed, which allows it to outpace Garchomp by one point after an Icy Wind (169 / 1.5 = 112.67, and stats are "floored" in pokemon not rounded up). This is ideal because as we know, Garchomp has a Focus Sash, so wouldn't matter if Suicune had 200 SpA (and Ice Beam), or, yes, if it were Starmie. So Icy Wind, the move I have sworn by for almost a decade going back to Emerald, is now required.
Of course, Suicune wasn't available until...yeah. Thanks for screwing up Pokebank, Nintendo. I was able to secure my HGSS Suicune a few weeks back, though, and I was at it all month with the team I'm about to post. I would be remiss if I didn't mention that for whatever reason, my Y game started randomly freezing in my 3DSXL (which is less than a year old and has been treated very well), losing me streaks of 166 and 115 consecutively.
Thinking it had to be the game, I sighed and bought X, beat it in like 8 hours (a refreshing accomplishment for someone who had like 35 hours on his Y game before getting the second badge), ported my team over, and soon ran my streak up to 241 just last Friday...before my DS pretended the game cart has been removed in the middle of battle 242. ("You can't make this up"...well you can, but why?) Infuriated but undeterred, mainly because of how marvelous and FAST this team is, I went out and bought the normal 3DS pictured above...and after a few losses (the latest being Battle 208 below on Tuesday night), I "finally" reached my goal. Without further ado:
Haxorus (F) @ Lum Berry ** Battle Hax
Ability: Mold Breaker
EVs: 108HP/252Atk/148Spe
Lv. 50 stats: 165/218/110/71/90/136
Nature: Adamant
~ Outrage
~ Earthquake
~ Substitute
~ Dragon Dance
Nothing changed from my BW Bullet Train team. This was really the catalyst of this XY team, since after losing with my other teams I wondered how much "worse" Haxorus could really be when I knew full well how much of a bitch it is with just one DD. Speed EVs put it at 136 Speed, which I found out after the fact was for a legit reason. 134 is enough to beat the crucial 130 Base Speed + crew (Timid Jolteon, Jolly Aerodactyl, etc.) after a DD, but 135 allowed it to tie with 70 Base Speed pokes that were +1 speed for whatever reason (think Scarf Metagross, even though there obviously isn't one in the Maison), and since speed ties are stupid why not make it 136? Well, here is why:
91 (Lv 50 speed stat) + 32 (speed points added with 252 Speed EVs) * 1.1 (Jolly Nature) = 135 Speed. Now what has the 71 Base Speed required to achieve this?
4 | Tyrantrum | Jolly | Choice Band | Crunch | Dragon Claw | Earthquake | Head Smash | Atk/Spe
Yeah. Speed tying with this would have been real stupid given the rest of my team (not that anything short of Cobalion or Steelix likes STAB CB Head Smash), which it will use against Haxorus even though DC is stronger (I lost my Scizor to this once, and was like "why...why would you...DC is stronger..."). Seriously, if there's a Battle Factory in "Pokemon Z", and you're up against this, and you have this pokemon in the back:
4 | Lucario | | Weakness Policy | Aura Sphere | Dragon Pulse | Stone Edge | ExtremeSpeed | Atk/SpA/Spd
You can't switch it in safely, because Head Smash does 46-54% and this Lucario actually has 131 speed. That's how lol the damage is. Enough of the sidetrack (sorry, I like numbers like this, as some of you may remember).
Haxorus is still the beast it was in BW, and Sub allows it to stand a chance against second-poke Fairies like Gardevoir and Mr. Mime after you kill poke one with Outrage (or third-poke, as the game doesn't always send out Fairies in this situation for whatever reason). One has to err on the side of EQing the lead foe because of Fairies, but besides that, Haxorus likes the CH nerf just as much as Suicune does. I can DD on things like Electivire4 (Jolly, IP) and Lanturn4 (IB) with complete security knowing that even a CH will not kill and Freezes are thawed by Lum. That is a really, really comforting reality. Haxorus would be my MVP if it were fair to have one given that this is really a total team effort, but many, MANY battles were four turns long just as they were in BW...I'd say about 30-40% of them. And speed is as important as it ever was.
Scizor (M) @ Scizorite
Ability: Technician
EVs: 244HP/252Atk/12Spe
Lv. 50 (Mega) stats: 176/222/160/76/120/97
Nature: Adamant
~ Bullet Punch
~ Bug Bite
~ Swords Dance
~ Roost
Such a good pokemon. Scizor and Suicune always fought over who should get the Leftovers in prior gens, and with the advent of Scizorite, Scizor gladly ceded them to Suicune, who always seemed to need them a bit more than the big bad bug. A calc:
252 Adamant Mega Scizor +2 Bug Bite
vs. Adamant Flareon : 100% - 117.9%
This is stupid. Just stupid. One turn of setup and it's OHKOing a resist every time? Silly. As is how reliable this is thanks to Roost, Skarmory-trumping 70/140/100 defenses (Skarm is 65/140/70) and just one weakness (something Aegislash wishes it had...grrr). Scizorite also came in handy against Alakazam4 (and Reuniclus4 to an extent) because Zam almost always uses Trick and it has Choice Specs so it will fail when I switch. The best is that sometimes the oh-so-clever AI I altered with past Trick scarfing exploits (sorry, but I think I'm allowed to take credit for that at this point!) won't even switch out immediately to be ~UNprEdIcTaBLe~ (I once got to +6 at Zam tricked three more times before finally switching).
Scizor itself is required even if just for its great priority with no immunities (something else Aegislash wishes it had...can you see where my grrring comes from yet lol) that comes in very handy. Bug Bite wasn't *that* required (I actually bred a Scizor with XS), but once I settled for waiting for my last poke to become available, I got both from kiera (I love you kiera!!) and her Japanese Pokebank capabilities. Which brings me to my last poke...
https://www.pokecheck.org/?p=detail&uid=7465875
Suicune @ Leftovers ** Holy Water
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 196HP/252Def/60Spe
Lv. 50 stats: 200/78/183/110/135/113
Nature: Bold
~ Scald
~ Icy Wind
~ Calm Mind
~ Rest
The answer to anyone's prayers. Suicune can beat virtually anything 1-on-1 thanks to Pressure, Icy Wind giving it initiative, and the familiar "Calm Mind Suicune has no weak especially with nerfed CHes". This thing is the answer to any status thanks to Rest and Scald thawing freezes. And yes, "I swear by Icy Wind", even after all these years, especially with the Ice Beam nerf. I've missed with it before in crucial spots but I don't even care, it's so worth it. I wouldn't use Hydro Pump over Scald even if Pump had perfect accuracy, I'm serious.
Pressure is so crucial in how it fucks with Wailord's Fissure PP and stalls out (CB) Stone Edges and Superpower and even 15 PP (8 effectively) moves like Shadow Ball. Suicune is a giant security blanket that throws a wet one on nearly any opponent's plans.
Anyway, here are some battle vids! So glad they let you save more than one at a time...
TYBW-WWWW-WWW5-4J7F: Battle 208, Brightpowder Zapdos is a TOTAL dickhead.
MMFG-WWWW-WWW5-4J76: Battle 176, Garchomp is also a dickhead but M-Scizor is a...cockblocking condom to that dickhead? Yeah something like that, no homo etc.
U9GG-WWWW-WWW5-4J84: Battle 331, I hate Tornadus1 a whole bunch
7BAW-WWWW-WWW5-4J87:
Battle 364, I hate Sawk too but whatever
With all that said..."this isn't even my final form". I have a better team than this that I may share with you all later, but I'm glad I was able to "dance with the one who brung you".
