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Concerning mono-type teams

Blastotle

What is everyone's thoughts on mono-type teams? Lately I've been having some trouble thinking up good central strategies or themes for teams, when it dawned on me that I could try having every member be a certain type, then work from there. I tried a mono-water team on Netbattle a while back that worked pretty well. I learned early on that the key to a mono team is having reliable ways to counter the dominant type weakness. For instance on my water team I had a Lanturn to soak up Thunderbolts.

So what in everyone's opinion is the best type for a mono-type? Taking into account the possible dual-types that could help cover weaknesses. I would cast my vote for Water just because there are so many pokemon to choose from, and they're generally beefy enough to withstand strong attacks.
 
They're a waste of time to build because you will never win a match with a mono team. But if I had to choose the best type I would have to agree with you and say water.
 
Mono type teams are great! I played mono Rock in Advance for a while, and racked up at least 30 wins, which is good for me. :D I had Hypnosis Lunatone taking on Earthquakers, and Mirror Coat Cradily taking Waters and other special attackers.
 
When you say mono, do you mean a truly mono-type team? I mean, does an all water type team have some pokemon, like Swampert, that is both Water and Ground? Or do you only use Pokemon which have a mono-type to form a mono-type team.

If I had to go with one type, I would either pick Ground, or Water.

Water for Swampert, Starmie, Gyarados, Suicine, Vaporeon, Ludicolo, to name a few.
Ground for Rhyperior, Hippowdown, Donphan, Claydol, Garchomp, and Gliscor.

Ground is beat by Water, Grass and Ice.
Water is beat by Electric and Grass.


Steel and Ghost are also two other good options, having a good number of immunities/resistances.
 
Mono water Teams are easy to cover weaknesses (Well, I think so). Lanturn/Swamprt for Electric whiile Gyrados is for Grass.

I would love to try this out!
 
I read a warstory a while back about a monobug team that beat down a standard team. I think it was Omegadonut's.

I'd imagine that a monopsychic team could work since Metagross and Jirachi can counter alot of psychic killers like Weavile. Never put one together, though.

At any rate, mono teams will always be pure novelty. Fun to try out once in a while, but they can never be truly competitive.
 
i'd recommend both mono normal and mon o flying teams too.

mono normals weakness is fighting, but with girafarig and the sheer amount of normal/flying types, its relatively easy to counter.


mono flying i would recommend because of the sheer variety of dual types associated with it.
 
Well, if one is looking for type diversity on a mono team, then Dark is the best choice. Probably followed by ghost. But for covering weakness, you can also add water. Ghost and Dark both automatically have at least 1 poke resisted to everything. Spiritomb and Sablye. Ghost would probably be my choice. Spiritomb, Gengar, Rotom, Froslass, Dusknior, Mismagius.
 
ghost has the weakness of not being able to cover it weakness well (ghost/dark) and also that they're nearly all special sweepers and you could do with some more physical (though i suppose banette and dusknoir count there)
 
Mono water teams can be amazing. You have a lot of more defensive pokemon to work with, complete with typings that cover the usual weaknesses. Hell, the only typings that water doesn't dual-type with are fire and ghost. Add the possibility of rain dance (now with damp stone) improving every member of the team, and you have a team that is not only competitive but throws off many standard teams.

With stuff like Toxicroak now benefiting from rain and yet being a completely different type than the rest, you may even be better off focusing a team around rain dance itself. Electrics are more than welcome too, especially Jolteon and Electivire, who can absorb electric attacks and make use of surefire Thunder in rain.
 
Alienjesus said:
mono flying i would recommend because of the sheer variety of dual types associated with it.
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I've played 3-4 mono flying teams on Shoddy and sad to say they're relatively easy to beat with a standard team, especially with stealth rocks in play.

When it comes to mono teams you're best bets are:

- Water
- Ice
- Ground

And as Omegadonut has proven, mono bug is rather solid as well.
 
Maestro said:
They're a waste of time to build because you will never win a match with a mono team. But if I had to choose the best type I would have to agree with you and say water.
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What is this? Way to fucking overgeneralize. I've won shitload of matches with my mono-water team on Netbattle, does that mean I'm special or something since I broke your never law? I'm sure others on here have won matches using their mono team against good players too. So watch your wording.
 
Tinnacious said:
What is this? Way to fucking overgeneralize. I've won shitload of matches with my mono-water team on Netbattle, does that mean I'm special or something since I broke your never law? I'm sure others on here have won matches using their mono team against good players too. So watch your wording.
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What "good" players are you talking about? I can guarantee you that you wouldn't beat anybody even remotely skilled at Pokemon with a mono team.
 
Coming to win the topic.

Water, Psychic, Normal are all fairly strong for obvious reasons; strong array of multi-type pokemon to choose from to cover weaknesses and attack from different angles. Electric used to kick some serious ass, single type weakness easily covered by Hidden Power, but I have no experience with it to back that statement up for D/P. Everybody here has forgotten Poison, which is pretty good for the large variety you get (without getting boned by SR like Flying). Rock presumably owns face now that Sand Stream was buffed.

Bug and Fighting lack the variety necessary to be really "good" but are still usable. Grass likewise, but they get bonus points for Leech Seed whoring and many of them are incredibly bulky. Flying has a large selection of pokemon but the SR weakness really hurts and there aren't many choices to cover your type weaknesses.

Fire and Ice have Rock (SR) weakness, have terrible defensive typing, and have little variety. (Ice does have the benefit of being a strong attacking type, though.) Ground has a hard time covering its weaknesses and can't do a damn thing to defend against Special attacks in general except for Claydol or a Mirror Coating Swampert. Dark, Dragon, Ghost and Steel simply don't have enough pokemon to choose from to make a big impact, though Steel has the biggest selection and the benefit of an amazing defensive typing and Dragon can abuse the brokenness that is Draco Meteor/Outrage.
 
If you are playing BL/UU mono Poison also works surprisingly well ... the team I was running on Shoddy earlier today had double the wins it did losses.

Edit: Mr. E beat me to it ...
 
I agree with most people here that mono water (plus dual water) types would be your best bet. Water covers alot, and isn't resisted by much.

I'd like to try an all-grass team, but Infernape is just so damn common. Ludicolo couldn't handle him alone... I think.

An all-fire team would be really cool, but is probably your worst bet for a mono-type team. An all-ice team might fare slightly better than fire, if only for hail.
 
I know that Water, Normal, and Psychic are very good ideas for Normal type teams due to the massive variety that's available. Water has excellent Pokemon like Gyarados, Suicune, Swampert, Milotic, Lanturn, Ludicolo, etc.; in fact, the only type that hasn't been mixed with Water are Fire and Ghost. I've watched Omegadonut win a lot of battles on Shoddy with his mono-Bug team, too, but I've never tried one.
 
Maestro said:
They're a waste of time to build because you will never win a match with a mono team.
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I'm going to disagree somewhat there.

A good player who runs a mono-type team is going to be FAR more aware of their short comings/weaknesses than they normally would be. When constructing a mono-type team the main priority that comes to anyones mind is WEAKNESS.

Often I see these style of teams compensating heavily for their shortcomings but because of this they can be much harder to break than your average team, even their playing style will adapt to it.
 
Ground pretty easily covers its weaknesses, and is probably the most diverse pokemon type after water.

Fire/Ground ~ Camperupt (Hiya grassers)
Water/Ground ~ Quagsire/Swampert/Whiscash/Gastrodon (Quags esp. lols at water)
Grass/Ground ~ Torterra
Ice/Ground ~ Mamoswine
Poison/Ground ~ Nidoking/Nidoqueen
Bug/Ground ~ Wormadam (Ground)
Flying/Ground ~ Gliscor
Pure Ground ~ Sandslash/Dugtrio/Marowak/Donphan/Hippowdon
Rock/Ground ~ Golem/Rhyperior
Psychic/Ground ~ Claydol
Dragon/Ground ~ Flygon/Garchomp
Steel/Ground ~ Steelix

The only types missing are Normal/Ground, Fighting/Ground, Ghost/Ground, and Dark/Ground.

So unless you're facing something like defensively oriented Ludicolo, you have things that can deal with any two of Surf, Ice Beam, and Energy Ball/Grass Knot. You only run into trouble if a single enemy has all 3. Hippowdon makes an easy lead since it doesn't do anything to your team, can set up rocks, and has a 50% recovery move. Nearly everything has access to the Earthquake and Stone Edge combination, and you have some of the fattest physical walls in the game with Gliscor, Hippowdon, and Steelix. Combine this with the fact Claydol can use Trick Room to help your slow pokemon out and a mono Ground team is formidable.
 
Hrothgar said:
I'd imagine that a monopsychic team could work since Metagross and Jirachi can counter alot of psychic killers like Weavile. Never put one together, though.

At any rate, mono teams will always be pure novelty. Fun to try out once in a while, but they can never be truly competitive.
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You'd be surprised at how well they work. My friend offered a position in a WiFi league he's setting up as one of the gym leaders to me. Mono-Psychic allows you to cover all of your bases pretty well; Cresslia, Metagross and Bronzong (Levitate) cover your defensive needs pretty well and you have a number of sweepers/tanks to support those 3 base walls/tanks. Your team generally has a ScarfGar weakness unless you're putting Choice Scarf on your Alakazam instead of ChoiceSpex/Life Orb (or Psychic and Scarf on Starmie, yech). The pool of competitive candidates isn't as deep as Water, but the ability to minimize weakness and form a well rounded team that generally has 0 SR weak is pretty savage.

The only problem I see with mono-Water is that a lot of your offensive movepool is dependent on pokemon with Surf/Ice Beam (Waterfall/Ice Fang-Avalanche). Surely not a BAD thing to cover so many types with two moves, but there's little variety in having a good chunk of the damaging attacks on your team focus around those two combinations. Also, Ludicolo has neither Electric nor Grass weak and touts Leech Seed. I think a strong base of Gyrados/Ludicolo-Milotic/Suicune-Slowbro/Swampert for a water team seems pretty strong.
 
I did think of making a monotourney on a different forum, but restricting it to 3v3, because that way types with limited options have more choice... In 3v3, I think steel 3v3 works quite well, tbh. Nice defensive type, and you have a multitude of walls, tanks and sweepers to pick from. Gross/Bronzong/Heatran was my idea, but then, a lot of you outclass me by miles at this sort of stuff, so I'll take your word for it.
 
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