Gen 4 Stuff and Teams and Things

[Diarkia124]

Heres to 2011 and Team Marriland
Due to the lack of response here, I decided to get my team rated on Smogon, and I'm quite impressed with their changes, even after your rates. This team has done well for me, it has won most of their matches, and the losses were by a small margin, less than 3 Pokemon at a very low amount of HP.

Glance​

===================================================

===================================================​

In-Depth

Jirachi @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Serene Grace
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature (+Spd, -SAtk)
- Iron Head
- Stealth Rock
- Ice Punch
- Trick
Starting off the team is Jirachi. It runs a Choice Scarf set and checks leads. It traps the lead and helps me set up with my remaining Pokemon. Even better if I manage to lock someone into a Stealth Rock or Spikes position as it gives me a free turn to set up. Ice Punch is to give some chance to freeze anyone and Iron Head is for that annoying Flinch Hax.

Gengar (F) @ Life Orb
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Substitute
- Pain Split
- Shadow Ball
- Focus Blast
Gengar is used to cripple some teams by weakening them. It's most beneficial to bring in when I lock a lead Machamp in a Dynamic Punch. I use Substitute as a check and then Shadow Ball and Focus Blast to attack, which leaves most, if not all at least in neutral damage. Pain Split is to bring down bulky Pokemon at the benefit of healing Gengar.

Shaymin @ Leftovers
Trait: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 HP / 64 SAtk / 188 Spd
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Leech Seed
- Seed Flare
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Protect
Shaymin is the answer to bulky waters such as Suicune and Vaporeon. I'll start off with Leech Seed, so even if the person switches out, Shaymin will still benefit. Then, depending on what happens next, I can Protect to see what the Pokemon is gonna do. If I could handle the Pokemon it's battling, I can Seed Flare, or Hidden Power if I go against a Bug-Type, Grass-Type, or Fire-Type.

Gyarados (F) @ Leftovers
Trait: Intimidate
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SDef
Impish Nature (+Def, -SAtk)
- Rest
- Sleep Talk
- Thunder Wave
- Waterfall
Gyarados is here as my bulky Water Pokemon. Most people will assume that it is an offensive Pokemon, so I can just get a free Thunder Wave to slow them down. Waterfall can flinch people when they're Paralyzed and I can shrug off damage with Rest. Sleep Talk is to attack while Gyarados here is sleeping, although it can use Rest again, so it's only reliable to an extent.

Tyranitar (M) @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Sand Stream
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature (+Spd, -SAtk)
- Stone Edge
- Crunch
- Pursuit
- Earthquake
Tyranitar is my revenge killer, carrying the Choice Scarf. If I manage to switch in a Ghost or Psychic Type, I can screw them over with Pursuit. Stone Edge is for Zapdos, Crunch is for the STAB, and Earthquake has decent coverage and hits hard.

Lucario (M) @ Life Orb
Trait: Inner Focus
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Swords Dance
- Close Combat
- ExtremeSpeed
- Crunch
Last but not least, is the finisher of my team, Lucario. I send him in when most of the other Pokemon of the opponents is badly crippled weather it be very low HP or Paralysis. If I get to a free turn, then I will Swords Dance, which in most cases, will seal victory. Close Combat is devastating, but risky as well. Crunch is to hit Ghosts since the other two attacks can't touch them.

 

[Danmire]

Replace Steadfast with Inner Focus, as it serves no purpose. That set is meant,(at least, for me), to be a late game sweeper, and Steadfast isn't needed when you have a +1 or +2(Swords Danced) Extremespeed.
Also, replace Illuminate for Natural Cure on Starmie. Illuminate has no effect whats so ever in battles. Natural Cure is the required choice, as you're status free when you switch out. You can Rapid Spin Toxic spikes!

That's my advice, hope it helps! Other than that, it's starting to look like a great team.

 

[Zephyr]

Alright to start off, seems like you have a pretty good team going so far, but after reading it, I noticed a few things you should know or possibly improve upon.

First, just to be sure you know(since the way you worded it wasn't clear)
But you don't really need to "surprise" Aerodactyl with Ice punch, when Jirachi's Ironhead is doing more damage to Aero than Ice punch is.

It's worth looking at having Jolly on your Lucario since you're gonna wanna be outran as little as possible when trying to sweep, though if you really want the power adamant is okay.

Next off, despite what you mentioned earlier, I fail to see the point of Toxic on Heracross, reason one being that while you waste a turn toxicing, you're risking a valuable revenge killer taking a possibly lethal blow in exchange for toxic, leave it to a defensive pokemon.
Finally, I don't know which of Lucario's threats you could would want to toxic that you wouldn't to just fire speedy powerful attacks from heracross, seeing as if you replace toxic for another coverage move(such as night slash) You hit a very wide variety of pokemon with threatening blows. Oh and I think it would be more valuable to have Guts on Heracross, not only is there a much bigger chance of being statused than an offensive pokemon being left with 1/3 hp or less(not to mention guts benefits all moves and is more valuable anyways) but you can also use Heracross too absorb Will-o-wisp for other pokemon being targeted.

 

[Diarkia124]

Thanks for the rates, I probably should have checked the natures before directly importing the text. And, I'll test out Heracross now.

 

[AB2]

Hi, this seems like a pretty good lucario team for today's metagame; however I am a bit confused with some of the pokemon that are on this team. First of all I notice that you have a bit of an offensive suicune weakness. Starmie lacks any effective ways to deal with it so it can spam CM on a lot of your team. Also, I notice that your team has 3 ground weaks and only 1 immune and a resist. I think that both your suicune weakness could be fixed along with this slight problem with resistances. I would replace your heracross with a leech seed + protect shaymin. This will allow you to switch into almost every bulky water type safely as well as forcing them out with leech seed.

Shaymin @ Leftovers
Timid 252 HP | 188 Spe | 64 SpA Natural Cure
Leech Seed | Seed Flare | Hidden Power [Fire] | Protect

Although you still have the same amount of resists, I do notice a way in which you could lure in most of Lucario's counters so that Tyranitar will be able to pick them off much easier. In my opinion, a Thunder Wave Gyarados would work wonderfully on this team. Not only does it lure in pokemon like suicune and rotom, which are the bane of a lucario sweep at times, but it also checks Heatran and Infernape very effectively. Not to mention that Gyarados balances out your problem with ground weaknesses and resistances by adding an extra immune.

Gyarados @ Leftovers
Impish 248 HP | 252 Def | 8 SpD Intimidate
Rest | Sleep Talk | Thunder Wave | Waterfall

Finally, you may want to give your team some pursuit bait in order to give lucario more opportunities to sweep. I really think that your team would benefit from running a Substitute + Pain Split Gengar over your Flygon. Although Flygon can be very beneficial for luring in bulky water types; however Gyarados does that very nicely. Substitute Gengar in combination with Lucario not only forms a fantastic offensive core, but is a very good stall breaking combination as well. Once pokemon that trouble lucario such Gyarados and skarmory [since you are running jolly nature] are down then you can precede to sweep quite easily. I would simply run Shadow Ball | Pain Split | Focus Blast | Shadow Ball with 4 HP | 252 SpA | 252 Spe with a Life Orb and a timid nature on Gengar. For a quick side note, you may want to consider a Scarf on your Jirachi lead as it helps with more powerful forms of DD Nite as well as DD Tar. I would also suggest that you run Iron Head | Stealth Rocks | Ice Punch | Trick as this gives you so much extra insurance against those two pokemon.

That is all I have to say for now. Good Luck!

 

[Diarkia124]

@AB2: I'm probably going to do 7 test battles with this new team. I'll make the change if I win 5 of 7, but if I get 4 wins, I still will test with it more.

 

[Diarkia124]

Bump, massive changes to team in last 24 hours.

 

[Aerrow]

I really don't see the need of a thunder-wave Gyarados on this team as the Pokemon it is supposed to help take down (Suicune and Rotom-A) are already easily taken care of by other members of your team. Also, seeing as Lucario's top counters are immune to thunder-wave (Gliscor and Hippowdon), said move's usefulness is quite situational on this team. Instead, seeing as you have slight problems with defensive steel types like Bronzong and the rare tank Metagross, I suggest replacing your current Gyarados variant with the bulky dragon dance one as this will not only help you deal with the aforementioned, but also with common stall combinations.

With stall teams being taken care of by Gyarados, sub-split Gengar is unnecessary on your team, as it only peaks its effectiveness on teams which are vulnerable to opposing defensive strategies. Replacing it with the substitute three-attacks variant, (which seems a lot more suited for this team, if you include taunt Gyarados) would be best as this variant pairs up quite nicely with swords dance Lucario as Gengar is able to lure in pursuit-users off of which Lucario can nab an easy SD while Gengar can get out of the field unharmed due to substitute. Good Luck.