Third-annual pokemon league at college's anime convention. This year I'm going to be Blue. So I am a little restricted in terms of what pokemon I have available to me. But I think the team I created somehow managed to be good. The big twist to this team is that, in pokemon yellow, Blue uses a ninetales, allowing me to turn a lot of Blue's mediocre pokemon into a pretty decent team.
The key strategy for this sun team is using strange underused pokemon to get in a few big surprise hits.
Team:
Arcanine @ Electric Gem
Trait: Intimidate
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spd / 4 HP
Adamant Nature
- Flare Blitz
- Wild Charge
- ExtremeSpeed
- Close Combat
Arcanine started out as the "bad pokemon," the reason why my Blue theme is degenerate and won't ever really be a real competitive team. The redundancy having both ninetales /and/ arcanine made matters worse. But after some testing, I decided to give him an unconventional item, which I have been extremely happy with the results.
Arcanine gets a guaranteed OHKO against politoed. It's a big surprise for everyone, and it's common for me to kill the frog on turn 1.
Because of this surprise, I've been able to gain huge advantages against rain teams and have managed to score victories where my "real sun teams" couldn't.
Arcanine's surprise punch allows me to spend more resources preparing for sun's other threats: heatran & ttar.
Close Combat OHKOs Ttar; & does about 60-80% to heatran.
I've never actually used extreme speed, but it seems like it's good.
Flare Blitz hits everything pretty hard.
Ninetales @ Leftovers
Trait: Drought
EVs: 252 SAtk / 4 SDef / 252 Spd
Modest Nature
- SolarBeam
- Sunny Day
- Flamethrower
- Hidden Power [Ice]
I chose to go offensive with my ninetales because I'm not that fearful of losing the weather war. I'm not a fan of Sunny Day though, as I typically overuse it and take a lot of mispredicted hits.
Gyarados (M) @ Leftovers
Trait: Intimidate
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 Spd
Impish Nature
- Dragon Tail
- Taunt
- Earthquake
- Thunder Wave
Gyarados on a sun team is seems strange.
He functions as a utility pokemon and a pivot.
Earthquake on gyarados helps handle a lot of sweepers that I'd have trouble with in the sun (infernape/darmanitan/heatran).
Taunt helps keep the momentum of my offensive team going.
Dragon Tail+Thunder Wave spamming helps cripple threats, allowing exegg/arcanine to have a better chance at handling them.
In addition, Gyarados has nice type synergy with the team: it absorbs ground attacks, grass types absorbs thunderbolts aimed at gyara, can be used as a pivot between sweepers.
Also, Gyarados+Arcanine's intimidate-shenanigans also help seriously reduce the fallout against some opposing physical sweepers.
Alakazam @ Focus Sash
Trait: Magic Guard
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature
- Psyshock
- Focus Blast
- Shadow Ball
- Hidden Power [Ice]
I have very mixed feelings about alakazam. His type coverage isn't really that helpful. It's nice to snag a kill against ttar, and he functions a mediocre revenge killer. HP Ice+sash lets me handle any dragon that's gotten out of hand.
Focus Blast does a little over 50% against spd heatran, and [at most] just under 100% against offensive heatran (switching to lifeorb alakazam is tempting, but not being able to take never feels worth it).
Exeggutor (M) @ Life Orb
Trait: Chlorophyll
EVs: 156 Atk / 140 SAtk / 212 Spd
Rash Nature
IVs: 30 Atk / 30 SAtk / 30 Spd
- Sleep Powder
- Nature Power
- Wood Hammer
- Psychic
Another "surprise." Wood Hammer/naturepower OHKO's ttar/heatran. Sleep Power is there to clear up a coverage slot for venusaur, and I chose psychic over leafstorm for slightly better coverage. (Hitting both Landorus-T and dragons) [it's tempting to switch out psychic for hp fire or ice, for stronger but less specific coverage]
Venusaur (M) @ Life Orb
Trait: Chlorophyll
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Modest Nature
- Sludge Bomb
- Growth
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Giga Drain
I love having sleep powder on Venusaur to get up a growth. But I'm trying sludge/hp/giga just for better overall coverage.
The venusaur is naturally pretty standard, and the features of my team come out of trying to handle his weaknesses.
So, the team I'll use as a gym leader is going to have all pokemon in my team owned by Blue (in one of the past games). Naturally, without this restriction I'd switch exeggutor out for sawsbuck and alakazam for something else.
http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Blue_(game)
As you can see from the link, Machamp, jolt/vap/flareon, aerodactyl, cloyster, rhyperior, heracross, & machamp are all options as well.
You are, of course, welcome to suggest non-blue-owned pokemon too; as I think I'll continue to use this team competitively after the gym-leader challenge.
Thanks for reading guys; let me know what you think.
