Block Magic {OU}

[Tiida]

Introduction:

I've been testing this team on Shoddy for quite a while and it has gotten nice results. The idea behind the team is Offensive; Pokemon hit hard and faint quickly. It also relies heavily on priority attacks and in my opinion there aren't many better than Extremespeed Lucario and Bullet Punch Scizor. On their own they are devastating, but together I find that they just simply overpower some teams. My Team also has some nice resistances and immunities which makes it is easier to switch out and come in. With this I find it quite easy to set up and get a miner sweep. These "Miner Sweeps" are usually ended by Life Orb damage and such and require cleanup. I find that Scizor is usually the House Maid, and cleans up other Pokes unfinished business. With this Offensive team there also is defense as well, Zapdos, Vaporeon, and Swampert are all other Pokemon that seem defensive, but can do offensive jobs. Although this team has been my best yet, I believe it’s not perfect and could use improving. So without further ado..

At Glance ***

In Detail

Swampert (M) @ Leftovers
Evs: 240 HP / 216 Def / 52 SpA
Relaxed Nature
-Stealth Rock
-Earthquake
-Ice Beam
-Surf

Swampert is by far the best lead I've ever used. He's almost guaranteed Rocks up and can get nice damage on almost all leads. Usually my priority is to set up Stealth Rock, but there is some exceptions. Usually facing Aerodactyl, Metagross, and Jirachi I just attack because I find the damage really helps there. After whatever goes on with our leads, I always save Swampert for Tanking/Walling later game. He has such key immunites to electric type attacks that its a must. A lot of the time I go into him to take the burn because of only one physical attack. The Evs are fairly standard as they are meant for Swampert to take physical hits and get an OHKO on Salamence. the reason for Ice Beam and Surf are because it gives Swampert much stronger Ice and Water attacks which give more damage. Swampert is by far my favorite bulky water and it does a fine job.

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Vaporeon (F) @ Leftovers
Evs: 188 HP / 252 Def / 68 Spe
Bold Nature
-Wish
-Protect
-Surf
-Ice Beam/Hidden Power Electric

Vaporeon is the second of the bulky water duo. With her great bulk and typing she makes an excellent contributer. On Offensive teams that are constantly hitting and getting hit by Stealth Rock and such, Vaporeon is excellent to heal them back. Vaporeons place on the team is to take some hits and heal other injured members. Surf is there for obvious STAB and keeps a number of Pokemon in check. Protect is rather obvious to keep Wishes going and staying alive. In the last slot I'm having a bit of a dilemma. Hidden Power Electric keeps Gyarados completely walled, but Ice Beam keeps those pesky Grass and Dragon types to think twice before switching in. If someone would like to give me some advice I'd gladly take it. :) Vaporeon seems to fit pretty well on the team, with her resistances and walling abilities on other Pokemon.

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Lucario (M) @ Life Orb
Evs: 252 Atk / 252 Spe / 4 Def
Adamant Nature
-Swords Dance
-Close Combat
-Extremespeed
-Crunch

Basic Lucario set here. Come in on the resist, play with knives on the switch, and hit away. Pretty Standard set but I find it devastating. Close Combat is just ridiculous, sporting a fancy 120 Base Power STAB tears through teams. Extremespeed is one part of the duo priority but it's extremely useful. See what I did there Extremespeed, Extremely useful, yea I know not funny. Anyways Crunch because of those pesky Ghost switch ins and I just dislike the accuracy of Stone Edge. Lucario is probably the Pokemon doing the most sweeping on my team and usually does most of the work by him self. Adamant nature just to add to that sexy attack stat and add a bit more of a Punch. Even with the predictability, Lucario is one of the biggest threats late game, period.

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Latias (F) @ Life Orb
Evs: 4 HP / 252 Spe / 252 SpA
Timid Nature
-Calm Mind
-Recover
-Dragon Pulse
-Surf

Latias is a killer when used correctly. Although it doesnt have an amazing Special Attack Stat it makes up for it in a boat load of other ways. She has Calm Mind, to boost her great bulk and Special Attack even more. Recover to heal a nice chunk of her health back. She also has an amazing type in my opinion with resistances to Grass,Electric, Fire and full immunities to Ground type attacks. She is a sweeper to be wrecking with. Usually Latias gets some miner sweeps and can take a nice chunk out of opposing teams. Calm Mind and Recover are obvious, Dragon Pulse is fairly obvious as being one of her most powerful moves (Draco Meteor). Almost always I find that opposing players switch to a Steel Type so I find Surf amazing. It gets rid of those steel types fairly easily and is a powerful move in general. Latias does an amazing job in her role and is a great special attacker.

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Scizor (M) @ Choice Band
Evs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 Spe
Adamant Nature
-Bullet Punch
-Superpower
-U-turn
-Pursuit/Quick Attack

Everyone has this thing on their team and for good reason. Bullet Punch is well Bullet Punch. Priority STAB Technician just cleans up all the sweeps that other guys left behind. Superpower annihilates Snorlax and Blissey and U-turn is just amazing. Being able to scout out what the opponent does is so helpful. In the last slot I'm kind of torn. Pursuit kills Ghost and Physics, but usually they just stay in. Bullet Punch can do they same job if they don't switch and Quick Attack would get really helpful kills on things like Zapdos. Scizor almost always finishes the game when I win and can also sweep mid-game aswell. Such a key member of the team and one of the biggest threats in the metagame. He also has the second part of the priority duo with Lucario. Which is a big part of getting kills.

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Zapdos @ Leftovers
Evs: 248 HP / 228 Def / 32 Spe
Bold Nature
-Thunderbolt
-Heat Wave
-Hidden Power {Grass}
-Roost

Zapdos is generally the weak link on the team. He usually doesn't do much and has an annoying weakness to Stealth Rock. If there is any suggestions to change, maybe an offensive version I don't really know. There is still some good things about Zappy. he has good stats, a nice recovery move in Roost, and Pressure to waste opponents PP. Zapdos makes a good Scizor counter and Heat Wave is to hit all the Steel types in general. Thunderbolt gets nice STAB and has nice coverage. Hidden Power Grass is mainly for Swampert and Roost is obvious. Although i would like to use Zapdos it just doesn't seem to have a place on the team and the Stealth Rock weakness just annoys me so much.

So that's the Team. Feedback would be greatly appreciated. Cheers guys! Edits Will be In Blue.

 

[tab]

Hi, welcome to Smogon!

This team looks fairly solid, the only glaring weakness that I can see Ice Punch SD Lucario, which can OHKO your entire team. However, Ice Punch is pretty rare, so you should be OK the majority of the time.

Vaporeon should definately use HP Electric over Ice Beam, as without it, it's pretty easy for your team to get swept by DD Gyarados.

On Latias, you should run an EV spread of 148 HP/108 SpA/252 Spe, which allows you to take 4 Seismic Tosses from Blissey, factoring in Leftovers recovery. I'd go with Refresh over Surf so that Latias has a better chance of beating stall (and is more or less guarenteed to do so if you take out Celebi), as this team looks like it's going to really struggle to break a good stall team, due to Lucario being the only really significant offensive threat.

I'd keep Pursuit on Scizor. The main reason not to use it it to prevent Lucario from setting up easily, but you have Lucario covered reasonably well, so that's not a huge issue. Pursuit is always an extremely useful option to have, especially for a team like this, and it will give you a better method of dealing with non-HP Fire Latias, which could be pretty annoying to deal with otherwise.

Zapdos should stay imo, as without it, you're going to be incredibly prone to being swept by SD Lucario. Currently, Zapdos is keeping the most common variant (Crunch) in check, which is a pretty important role, as well as several other important threats.
A possible alternative would be Rotom-H, either with a Choice Scarf, or with the Leftovers spread, modified to include enough speed EVs to outspeed Adamant Lucario (Jolly is pretty rare, and is on the decline, so it's passable as a Lucario counter). A moveset of Thunderbolt/Shadow Ball/Overheat and Trick or Will-o-Wisp depending on the item would work, although I think Zapdos is probably the better all-round choice.

I hope this helps, and good luck with the team!

 

[Tiida]

Thanks Tab

I will put Hidden Power Electric on Vaporeon and the Ev spread on Latias will change to. I find that Refresh is okay but Surf gets more kills and is the better option. I will also test Rotom-H and see how it does.

I appreciate the help and I thank you!

 

[iKitsune]

This team although solid is in dire need of something to beat stall. You simply dont have a single thing on the team that isnt easily walled by common members of a stall team. For instance most of the team is easily walled by blissey or Gyarados and spikes are easily set up which will quickly lead to your downfall. Your wallbreaker and only hope against stall is Lucario is easily walled by Gyarados which is a common constituent of stall teams. What you lack is a solid threat against stall.

Zapdos as you have correctly mentioned is probably the weakest member of this team. It helps with both Lucario and Scizor stone walling the SD version of the latter. If you do take on my proposed chage you will struggle somewhat with scizor but you will be far better equipped to take on stall.

I suggest you change Zapdos to a Classic MixMence. It easily 2hkos every pokemon in stall and with roost it can keep on doing so. This is the set:

Salamence @Life Orb
80Atk/252SpAtk/176spe
Mild.

Draco Meteor
Brick Break
Fire Blast
Roost

So you should give that a try and see how you fair with the change in place.

I would forgo surf on swampert for protect. Swampert really doesnt need the added coverage to be effective, whilst the benefits of Protect are vital and numerous. Protect allows swampert to scout explosions, especially from metagross, it also allows it to avoid Trick and predict Choiced threats and usefully it allows for that small lefties gain.

Well i hope this helps.

Please give me some feedback on the success/failure of these changes and i will see what i can do to help.

The rest is good and i agree with Tab about Vaporeon needing HP Electirc but disagree about running that Latias set you need the sweeping potential your current set provides against an offensive team. If you do run the latias he suggests definitely run leftovers over LO without this blissey will beat you due to the mounting damage of LO, Seismic toss and Sand Storm.

 

[tab]

Sorry, that was my mistake. I didn't notice you were using a Life Orb Latias, you can ignore my EV spread and Refresh suggestion in that case.

However, if you do decide to go with the anti-stall Latias, you should use use Leftovers as iKitsune said. Sorry for the confusion.

 

[Tiida]

Thanks iKitsune and I agree, I have run into some issues with stall. I like the idea with Mence I'll try it out. As for Swampert I do like Surf, but your ideas for Protect sound good. I'll see how protect does. I will also change the Evs on Latias back. Thanks Guys