This is probably my favourite one yet. I need to give the bulky Moltres a try, seems like everyone's using it.Yes, yes, I'm boiling with excitement to share the Fire-type team I made yesterday. Mono Fire was in the back of my mind for a while, and I was very afraid of this one because literally everything is weak to Water, so I thought Starmie, for example, would be nearly impossible to win against first.
On the other hand, Fire has got powerhouse offensive qualities, such as BellyZard, Reversal Blaziken, CM Entei, and pretty good basestats to work with in general. Originally, I expected to be obligated to use Torkoal because it tanks Rock/Ground-type moves the best and can potentially setup with Curse, although it will remain too weak on the Special side (unless it uses Amnesia, and I expect it to suck pulling off a "German Registeel" set). Anyway, I was pretty sure the lead had to take care of problematic Water-types such as Starmie, because there isn't any way of switching a Fire-type into something like that.
I noticed Arcanine is about as bulky as Torkoal when Intimidate is factored in, and while playing with the Pokémon calculator, I first made a set that counters offensive Starmie with Crunch + Extremespeed. This requires a very specific EV spread, which poses a dilemma: it either can't 2HKO Starmie this way, or it doesn't survive (non-crit) Surf 100% of the time. Also, it would impose a Speed-lowering Nature (probably Brave) on Arcanine. Then I thought of the classic Barkanine set, and tried HP Ghost. Turns out Arcanine DOES counter Starmie with HP Ghost + Extremespeed while surviving Surf guaranteed (due to its Attack BS being that much higher than its SpA)! The lead was decided on: a Thief / Extremespeed / HP[Ghost] / Filler "problem-solver" Arcanine. The next challenge is to make the rest of the team so that second Water-types and other offensive problems are taken care of when setup, for example. Finally, not a CGS team; it's a team that eliminates lead threats and "pre-eliminates" further threats as good as possible with the other two Pokes. Ironically, this is probably the very best Monotype until now. I proudly present:
Mono Fire
Arcanine @ [No Item]
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 236 HP / 188 Atk / 80 SpD / 4 Spe
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SpA)
IVs: 30 Def / 30 SpD
- Thief
- Hidden Power [Ghost]
- Extremespeed
- Charm
The EV's are explained above; 4 Speed EV's makes it outspeed Jynx amongst others, which is a good niche I guess, although Entei covers that anyway. Arcanine trades a few HP EV's for extra Attack, as offensive Starmie's Surf does 194 damage max anyway. Hidden Power [Ghost] + Extremespeed also beats Gengar and Espeon in a pinch, but Entei also covers these. Charm is really useful against the QC Rock types I just stole Quick Claw from to soften them up (note that Arcanine survives even Rhydon's EQ, and Marowak is a joke after Thief). Most importantly though, Charm prevents Dragon Dancers from setting up in a dangerous way, as this team is really bad against faster opponents without their Attack being cut such as Salamence. I don't care about Metagross or Clear Body in general, as long as I steal their Quick Claw I'm fine. The Special Defense EV's, while primarily being to survive Starmie's Surf, also helps against powerful Thunderbolts from Electrics outspeeding my team (Manectric and Raikou).
Moltres @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 92 HP / 56 Def / 4 SpA 124 SpD / 236 Spe
Timid Nature (+Spe, -Atk)
- Protect
- Substitute
- Will-O-Wisp
- Morning Sun
We know this Moltres already, and its use as a lead on BT stall teams already proved its usefulness. On this team, however, it has to stall more than just a selection of Pokémon. It's a "physical wall" of sorts, and outstalls the majority of slower BT Pokémon in general. Note that the Starmie sets that don't get beaten by Arcanine are outsped by this Moltres, so they can be safely stalled out of PP. Will-O-Wisp is chosen over Toxic because it lowers the opponent's Attack, which might help Entei to setup earlier in the right situation. I went for a set with less-than-max HP (one perfect Substitute number less), because that allows it to survive offensive Starmie's Surf just like Arcanine, which gives me a chance to rob Starmie more Surf PP if it crits through Arcanine. The four SpA EV's are just in case I want to teach it Flamethrower or something, but that won't happen ;)
If Moltres is stuck against a passive (Resting) opponent, Entei comes in and sets up. Watch Moltres' PP; use WoW if Protect/Sub would be wasted otherwise, because it might have to stall two or even three Pokémon in the worste case. What can I say, this thing is a monster (just like the other legendary birds on the other teams: they're so GOOD!)
Entei @ Lum Berry
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 84 HP / 196 SpD / 228 Spe
Timid Nature (+Spe, -Atk)
- Calm Mind
- Substitute
- Flamethrower
- Rest
This is the "Special wall" of the team, adding another Pressure user for the team as well. Together with Moltres, Rock Slide, Earthquake and Surf PP's will wear down VERY quickly, and Entei is the setup Pokémon of choice, should I get the chance for that. This is the best Pokémon to have ready and fully setup if an offensive Starmie should come in. It might surprise you that it runs so much Special Defense when it already runs Calm Mind; this is to make it much easier to switch into Gengar and Manectric, the latter of which can be a problematic offensive presence otherwise, since it outspeeds Moltres and can KO it (especially the Magnet set). Manectric never 2HKOes Entei without a crit and is outsped by Entei. The biggest problem for this team is general is Raikou 878 (the only one that Calm Minds up), which further emphasizes the need of Entei being specially bulky even before it has Calm Minded. Against Raikou I have a specific strategy: Use Thief with Arcanine to scout its set and remove its Chesto Berry if it's the bad one. Then use Extremespeed. If it attacks Arcanine with Thunderbolt twice, it hasn't setup with Calm Mind yet and Entei can beat it 1v1. If it uses Calm Mind / Thunderbolt, it still only 2HKOes Arcanine, so Arcanine will have put it in KO range (Extremespeed 3HKOes with 94.1% chance), which causes it to use Rest and stay asleep since I stole its Chesto Berry. Again, Entei can then 'out-CM' it. Entei has Lum Berry instead of Chesto to make switching into powerful Thunderbolts easier, as a bad-timed Full Para could really screw me up.
First I thought of using Camerupt to take care of Electric-types, among other things. It could also get a 'free OHKO' by using Explosion (maybe I'd even use a Choice Band set), but Entei worked way better, especially by contribuing another fast Sub + Pressure abuser.
So there you go, the best Mono team until now by surprise. The Sample Streak finishes with Anabel; I understood you like to see that. Her Raikou is slow, so unfortunately I didn't have to show the usual strategy vs Raikou.
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Gen III Battle Frontier Discussion and Records
- Thread starter Kommo-o
- Start date
Nice to hear you like the Mono Fire team! I've been thinking about Mono Normal yesterday, and today I started experimenting with a lot of stuff. This is probably the most difficult team to build because contains so many options to consider. Playing with around 4 or 5 teams that really do something different, I think I finally came up with a pretty sturdy one, and it sure is original (even if I say so myself). In fact, I use two moves I'm pretty confident of no one ever considered for a Battle Tower team yet, and using obscure moves makes it so much more fun. Especially when it's actually effective. While experimenting, I had some really fun battles/strategies even though they didn't make it to the final team, but I'll save them as Bonus Content or something.
For Mono Normal, I'd like to share my thought process in greater detail because I went pretty nuts at some points. First of all, I thought of setup sweepers that I expected to be most effective, i.e. when they are fully set up. Creating the opportunity for them to do that was for later. Curselax comes to mind first, of course, but Belly Drum Clefable, CM Blissey, Bulk Up Granbull, Curse Miltank and probably some others are interesting as well.
BELLY DRUM CLEFABLE
So what does Normal offer in the crippling department? Miltank sure caught my attention, because it's one of two physically bulky Thunder Wave users (the other being Granbull), has enough speed to outspeed all Metagross without much investment, gets Milk Drink and room for filler moves, such as Mud-Slap, Growl, Flash or a useful attacking move like Shadow Ball and Earthquake. In fact, Miltank impressed me so much I decided to give it a run alongside Cosmic Power / Belly Drum / Sub / Double-Edge Clefable @ Leftovers, because this set doesn't require much preparation to setup (paralysis and one or two evasion falls is good, so Miltank had Twave / Flash / Milk Drink / EQ for Metagross) and solve eventual problems encountered with the empty third Pokémon slot. Until then, I had a dummy Ditto waiting in the third spot to remind me the team wasn't finished yet. Of course, I knew already that Clefable couldn't touch Gengar but that problem is easy to take care of later. The setup went moderately well in most cases and Clefable sweeps through with relative ease, because it has just enough speed to outrun very dangerous Quick Claw (ab)users and enough bulk for its Substitute to not get broken at +6 Def / SpD. Also, the HP lost from Double-Edge didn't seem to be a problem because I can "Cosmic Power to full health with Leftovers" before killing the first Pokémon (most Pokémon can't break Clefable's Sub in four turns, especially when their Accuracy is reduced). Physically defensive Steel- and Rock-types, especially Regis, remain dangerous because of their ability to setup Curse or Double Team, and of course Ghosts are a problem, although I can sweep the last Pokémon with Struggle if needed unless they use Seismic Toss (Dusclops). The Pokémon that solves these problems the best and also provides bulk and utility to the team is Psych Up Snorlax; it copies contingent Curse boosts from Regis and destroys them with EQ. It easily wins against Ghost-types with Shadow Ball and can ChestoRest again lead Calm Mind opponents. This resulted in the team below, but problems with Clefable not being able to setup reliably against too many Pokémon eventually convinced me to try other strategies, as I couldn’t figure out a way to solve all problems simultaneously. CM setup sweepers critting through Lax, (too) many critical hits while setting up with Clefable, Leftovers falling short of healing enough during setup and Miltank not being able to cripple the lead sometimes, together with the impossibility to remove Quick Claws are just examples of things that could and shall go wrong at some point.
[Spoiler: Detailed sets of Attempt #1, "Clefable", to be added]
CURSELAX
I needed a more reliable setup, and preferably sweep with two moves, because a monotype Normal attacker leaves some opponents in a position to become threatening. Also, I want to attack from behind a Substitute, which doesn’t keep breaking during setup if I have to bank on Leftovers for recovery. Obviously, my first gut said “use Curselax, don’t try anything stupid just to be creative, first try to actually win”. So what kind of support does Curselax need to setup? Lowered attack (possibly with lowered accuracy), not having to setup against Fighting-type moves, preferably a paralyzed opponent (because it does outspeed opponents before getting bulky enough to the point where its Sub doesn’t break) and enough Special Defense to take advantage of crippled Special Attackers. AND it needs to pre-Sub against anticipated Sub breaks. Blissey is naturally bulky, cripples all Special Attackers with Flash and Thunder Wave, outspeeds Metagross to Skill Swap it and steals Quick Claws. It has Serene Grace, because the AI will switch out Natural Cure Pokémon that get paralyzed occasionally. This gives Metagross Serene Grace, but its Meteor Mash boosts will be compensated by my second Pokémon. Speaking of Attack reduces, Intimidate Pokémon come to mind (Granbull learns Charm as well), but they are also weak to Fighting, or not bulky to begin with. I ended up using Pidgeot, of all things, as it learns Featherdance (which is WAY cooler than Charm), is surprisingly bulky due to its high HP (therefore able to hard switch into Fighting-types), fast enough to outspeed Heracross and actually pull something off before getting haxed in general, and able to learn Sand-Attack. It gets to use at least one crippling move against all physical opponents, usually two because of Sitrus Berry. Thief is a nice insurance when Sitrus Berry is consumed, should Blissey not be able to steal their item. Lowering evasion is a luxury move, but very welcome in setting up Snorlax. On paper, not a problem to be seen, right? Okay then, not except crit Quick Claw Meteor Mash on Turn 1, but I’ll accept that.
That’s what I proudly thought when walking along the beach yesterday while thinking everything out, leaving the moveset and EV optimization for when I got home. This resulted into the following team:
[Spoiler: Detailed sets of Attempt #2, "Curselax", to be added]
Still turns out that Snorlax can’t setup against Calm Minders, even if they have -6 Accuracy, because it Sub breaks and doesn’t outspeed them. I tried to work around that problem with Seismic Toss Blissey, leaving the Accuracy-lowering to Pidgeot instead. My expectations of Pidgeot were too high, as it’s pretty frail on the Special side, even against non-Calm Mind boosted attacks. On top of that, Metagross likes to use Explosion on Pidgeot (since it’s the only move in its set which Kos after Featherdance) ruining the whole setup, and finally, sweeping is always a risk at low speed, because Snorlax remains vulnerable against OHKOs and other forms of hax. Registeel does it better because of it resists a plethora of moves, and even Registeel is shaky when a crit breaks its sub sometimes. Still, I was pretty happy with this team and expected it to become my standard, but I wanted to give a shot at constructing a Trick team too, a strategy I’m pretty familiar with as you know.
TRICK BUILD
This opened up so many possibilities, fun strategies and also challenges that it nearly gave me a headache at some point. Obviously, Linoone is a decent Trick lead (nowhere near as effective as Alakazam though), although I was also willing to consider Kecleon and Furret, if they suit the other Pokémon better somehow (e.g. Furret potentially has more bulk at the cost of being outsped by more Pokémon and Kecleon is Specially bulky, has Skill Swap and Color Change might prove useful I guess).
The aforementioned sweepers come to mind as options for the third Pokémon, but if I can get the opponent to Struggle I have many choices of how to setup, so that wasn’t my immediate concern; the really interesting part is the second “glue” Pokémon that takes advantages of the opponent’s Choice Band while crippling their lead. Normal-types aren’t known for their physical bulk either except Miltank to an extent (who can’t really do anything to cripple Metagross), so I expected staying alive against Choice Band-locked Pokémon to be a challenge on its own. During the consideration of bulky Normal-types and getting frustrated about the lack of useful resistances in this pool, suddenly it came to me: could CONVERSION (2) bring something to this kind of team? To be honest I didn’t even memorize the exact mechanics of the moves, but I vaguely remembered it had something to do with converting into a STAB-gaining or resisting type. Conversion 2 gives Porygon2 a RANDOM type that resists the last move that used on it (so I can repeatedly use it to get an immune type sometimes!). Could be interesting against a Choice-locked opponent I thought, especially with Protect so I can convert my time without having to take damage first against slower opponents. This isn’t possible, however, because attack actually has to LAND on Porygon2 in order to work. Luckily, Conversion 2 DOES work after using Substitute, which is also a good move. Porygon2 survives nearly all critical hits from faster Pokémon when its type is still Normal, and after Conversion it actually stalls out ALL possible moves, save Meteor Mashes that are boosted too much. Also, it outspeeds the powerful Fighting-type Pokémon. And Trace is pretty good too, e.g. against Levitate EQ users or Jolteon. Could this really work?
As a filler, I first considered Flash or Icy Wind, but ultimately realised the necessity of Thunderbolt because that lets it beat Metagross 1v1; Metagross will nearly always acquire Attack boosts so it just has to die. Comfortingly, non-invested Thunderbolt turns out to have more uses. Scrolling through Porygon2’s other moves, I also noted Recycle. Because Porygon2 had so much time left while testing early versions of this team, I figured a Starf Berry Recycling set strangely might turn it into a sweeper after it gets foes Struggling. When it also needs to fulfill the crippling role, however, it needs Conversion2 as well and therefore has no attacking moves. After a while I thought “so what, its STAB is too situational anyway (see Clefable), could't it actually SWEEP WITH STRUGGLE when it had the equivalent has 6 Ancientpower boosts?” Yes, it can. It can even 3HKO Regirock, is not resisted, only takes ¼ damage from Struggle, can Recover up to full health before it runs out of PP and probably be behind a Substitute, has an 80 base Attack stat which is greater than I remembered… And so I made my personal favorite moveset in my entire Advance career.
[Spoiler: Detailed sets of Attempt #3, "TECHNOLOGY", to be added]
Porygon2 @ Starf Berry ** TECHNOLOGY
Ability: Trace
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -Def)
- Substitute
- Conversion 2
- Recover
- Recycle
Sounds too good to be true: if Linoone can Trick, I win. And because the crippler IS the sweeper, I have a wild card left to ensure Trick works. While testing, however, I saw that Porygon is often not yet fully setup with random boosts before the opponent kills itself with Struggle. Finishing boosting against the second Pokémon works most of the time, but Porygon sometimes doesn’t get through it with a Substitute intact, and Struggle doesn’t OHKO many Pokémon, leaving me vulnerable to OHKOs, Curse Regirock, Quick Claw and status. First I used lead Stantler, helping Linoone with Intimidate/Thunder Wave and most importantly, reducing opponent’s Attack so their CB crit Struggle doesn’t KO Porygon2 when it’s at half health, guaranteeing me to get into Starf range every time. Using the wild card to finish off last Pokémon is certainly possible too; Slaking is probably very effective here, or Psych Up / Selfdestruct / EQ / Sub Snorlax, which takes better care of Regirock. But the Struggle strategy, while being insanely cool IMO, sadly can’t be used for serious runs. Also it takes ages; I’ll definitely make some bonus content out of it.
So I still need a dedicated sweeper and just run Thunderbolt instead of the fascinating Recycle. Having the luxury of Struggling opponents, I figured I didn’t want slower setup Pokémon like Snorlax, because those always get haxed by the two following opponents sooner or later. The Lapras from the mono Ice team makes an exception because of Shell Armor. This rules out anything with Curse, so I looked into Ursaring or Granbull with Bulk Up / Salac Berry or Leftovers. They’re either too slow (and frail on the Special side) to reliably sweep, or have to run Salac Berry, which doesn’t let them fully setup sometimes due to crits. Also their Sub might be broken at low HP, after which a ‘still-faster’ opponent, Quick Claw activation or other scary stuff means the end. I want a fast sweeper without Salac Berry. That leaves Tauros and Swellow, but they can’t setup (although Swellow could maybe pull off something unreliable but funny with Endeavor). Or CAN they? We have finally arrived at the current team, but sadly I have no more time atm. To be added soon, as well as the detailed teams above.
For Mono Normal, I'd like to share my thought process in greater detail because I went pretty nuts at some points. First of all, I thought of setup sweepers that I expected to be most effective, i.e. when they are fully set up. Creating the opportunity for them to do that was for later. Curselax comes to mind first, of course, but Belly Drum Clefable, CM Blissey, Bulk Up Granbull, Curse Miltank and probably some others are interesting as well.
BELLY DRUM CLEFABLE
So what does Normal offer in the crippling department? Miltank sure caught my attention, because it's one of two physically bulky Thunder Wave users (the other being Granbull), has enough speed to outspeed all Metagross without much investment, gets Milk Drink and room for filler moves, such as Mud-Slap, Growl, Flash or a useful attacking move like Shadow Ball and Earthquake. In fact, Miltank impressed me so much I decided to give it a run alongside Cosmic Power / Belly Drum / Sub / Double-Edge Clefable @ Leftovers, because this set doesn't require much preparation to setup (paralysis and one or two evasion falls is good, so Miltank had Twave / Flash / Milk Drink / EQ for Metagross) and solve eventual problems encountered with the empty third Pokémon slot. Until then, I had a dummy Ditto waiting in the third spot to remind me the team wasn't finished yet. Of course, I knew already that Clefable couldn't touch Gengar but that problem is easy to take care of later. The setup went moderately well in most cases and Clefable sweeps through with relative ease, because it has just enough speed to outrun very dangerous Quick Claw (ab)users and enough bulk for its Substitute to not get broken at +6 Def / SpD. Also, the HP lost from Double-Edge didn't seem to be a problem because I can "Cosmic Power to full health with Leftovers" before killing the first Pokémon (most Pokémon can't break Clefable's Sub in four turns, especially when their Accuracy is reduced). Physically defensive Steel- and Rock-types, especially Regis, remain dangerous because of their ability to setup Curse or Double Team, and of course Ghosts are a problem, although I can sweep the last Pokémon with Struggle if needed unless they use Seismic Toss (Dusclops). The Pokémon that solves these problems the best and also provides bulk and utility to the team is Psych Up Snorlax; it copies contingent Curse boosts from Regis and destroys them with EQ. It easily wins against Ghost-types with Shadow Ball and can ChestoRest again lead Calm Mind opponents. This resulted in the team below, but problems with Clefable not being able to setup reliably against too many Pokémon eventually convinced me to try other strategies, as I couldn’t figure out a way to solve all problems simultaneously. CM setup sweepers critting through Lax, (too) many critical hits while setting up with Clefable, Leftovers falling short of healing enough during setup and Miltank not being able to cripple the lead sometimes, together with the impossibility to remove Quick Claws are just examples of things that could and shall go wrong at some point.
[Spoiler: Detailed sets of Attempt #1, "Clefable", to be added]
CURSELAX
I needed a more reliable setup, and preferably sweep with two moves, because a monotype Normal attacker leaves some opponents in a position to become threatening. Also, I want to attack from behind a Substitute, which doesn’t keep breaking during setup if I have to bank on Leftovers for recovery. Obviously, my first gut said “use Curselax, don’t try anything stupid just to be creative, first try to actually win”. So what kind of support does Curselax need to setup? Lowered attack (possibly with lowered accuracy), not having to setup against Fighting-type moves, preferably a paralyzed opponent (because it does outspeed opponents before getting bulky enough to the point where its Sub doesn’t break) and enough Special Defense to take advantage of crippled Special Attackers. AND it needs to pre-Sub against anticipated Sub breaks. Blissey is naturally bulky, cripples all Special Attackers with Flash and Thunder Wave, outspeeds Metagross to Skill Swap it and steals Quick Claws. It has Serene Grace, because the AI will switch out Natural Cure Pokémon that get paralyzed occasionally. This gives Metagross Serene Grace, but its Meteor Mash boosts will be compensated by my second Pokémon. Speaking of Attack reduces, Intimidate Pokémon come to mind (Granbull learns Charm as well), but they are also weak to Fighting, or not bulky to begin with. I ended up using Pidgeot, of all things, as it learns Featherdance (which is WAY cooler than Charm), is surprisingly bulky due to its high HP (therefore able to hard switch into Fighting-types), fast enough to outspeed Heracross and actually pull something off before getting haxed in general, and able to learn Sand-Attack. It gets to use at least one crippling move against all physical opponents, usually two because of Sitrus Berry. Thief is a nice insurance when Sitrus Berry is consumed, should Blissey not be able to steal their item. Lowering evasion is a luxury move, but very welcome in setting up Snorlax. On paper, not a problem to be seen, right? Okay then, not except crit Quick Claw Meteor Mash on Turn 1, but I’ll accept that.
That’s what I proudly thought when walking along the beach yesterday while thinking everything out, leaving the moveset and EV optimization for when I got home. This resulted into the following team:
[Spoiler: Detailed sets of Attempt #2, "Curselax", to be added]
Still turns out that Snorlax can’t setup against Calm Minders, even if they have -6 Accuracy, because it Sub breaks and doesn’t outspeed them. I tried to work around that problem with Seismic Toss Blissey, leaving the Accuracy-lowering to Pidgeot instead. My expectations of Pidgeot were too high, as it’s pretty frail on the Special side, even against non-Calm Mind boosted attacks. On top of that, Metagross likes to use Explosion on Pidgeot (since it’s the only move in its set which Kos after Featherdance) ruining the whole setup, and finally, sweeping is always a risk at low speed, because Snorlax remains vulnerable against OHKOs and other forms of hax. Registeel does it better because of it resists a plethora of moves, and even Registeel is shaky when a crit breaks its sub sometimes. Still, I was pretty happy with this team and expected it to become my standard, but I wanted to give a shot at constructing a Trick team too, a strategy I’m pretty familiar with as you know.
TRICK BUILD
This opened up so many possibilities, fun strategies and also challenges that it nearly gave me a headache at some point. Obviously, Linoone is a decent Trick lead (nowhere near as effective as Alakazam though), although I was also willing to consider Kecleon and Furret, if they suit the other Pokémon better somehow (e.g. Furret potentially has more bulk at the cost of being outsped by more Pokémon and Kecleon is Specially bulky, has Skill Swap and Color Change might prove useful I guess).
The aforementioned sweepers come to mind as options for the third Pokémon, but if I can get the opponent to Struggle I have many choices of how to setup, so that wasn’t my immediate concern; the really interesting part is the second “glue” Pokémon that takes advantages of the opponent’s Choice Band while crippling their lead. Normal-types aren’t known for their physical bulk either except Miltank to an extent (who can’t really do anything to cripple Metagross), so I expected staying alive against Choice Band-locked Pokémon to be a challenge on its own. During the consideration of bulky Normal-types and getting frustrated about the lack of useful resistances in this pool, suddenly it came to me: could CONVERSION (2) bring something to this kind of team? To be honest I didn’t even memorize the exact mechanics of the moves, but I vaguely remembered it had something to do with converting into a STAB-gaining or resisting type. Conversion 2 gives Porygon2 a RANDOM type that resists the last move that used on it (so I can repeatedly use it to get an immune type sometimes!). Could be interesting against a Choice-locked opponent I thought, especially with Protect so I can convert my time without having to take damage first against slower opponents. This isn’t possible, however, because attack actually has to LAND on Porygon2 in order to work. Luckily, Conversion 2 DOES work after using Substitute, which is also a good move. Porygon2 survives nearly all critical hits from faster Pokémon when its type is still Normal, and after Conversion it actually stalls out ALL possible moves, save Meteor Mashes that are boosted too much. Also, it outspeeds the powerful Fighting-type Pokémon. And Trace is pretty good too, e.g. against Levitate EQ users or Jolteon. Could this really work?
As a filler, I first considered Flash or Icy Wind, but ultimately realised the necessity of Thunderbolt because that lets it beat Metagross 1v1; Metagross will nearly always acquire Attack boosts so it just has to die. Comfortingly, non-invested Thunderbolt turns out to have more uses. Scrolling through Porygon2’s other moves, I also noted Recycle. Because Porygon2 had so much time left while testing early versions of this team, I figured a Starf Berry Recycling set strangely might turn it into a sweeper after it gets foes Struggling. When it also needs to fulfill the crippling role, however, it needs Conversion2 as well and therefore has no attacking moves. After a while I thought “so what, its STAB is too situational anyway (see Clefable), could't it actually SWEEP WITH STRUGGLE when it had the equivalent has 6 Ancientpower boosts?” Yes, it can. It can even 3HKO Regirock, is not resisted, only takes ¼ damage from Struggle, can Recover up to full health before it runs out of PP and probably be behind a Substitute, has an 80 base Attack stat which is greater than I remembered… And so I made my personal favorite moveset in my entire Advance career.
[Spoiler: Detailed sets of Attempt #3, "TECHNOLOGY", to be added]
Porygon2 @ Starf Berry ** TECHNOLOGY
Ability: Trace
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -Def)
- Substitute
- Conversion 2
- Recover
- Recycle
Sounds too good to be true: if Linoone can Trick, I win. And because the crippler IS the sweeper, I have a wild card left to ensure Trick works. While testing, however, I saw that Porygon is often not yet fully setup with random boosts before the opponent kills itself with Struggle. Finishing boosting against the second Pokémon works most of the time, but Porygon sometimes doesn’t get through it with a Substitute intact, and Struggle doesn’t OHKO many Pokémon, leaving me vulnerable to OHKOs, Curse Regirock, Quick Claw and status. First I used lead Stantler, helping Linoone with Intimidate/Thunder Wave and most importantly, reducing opponent’s Attack so their CB crit Struggle doesn’t KO Porygon2 when it’s at half health, guaranteeing me to get into Starf range every time. Using the wild card to finish off last Pokémon is certainly possible too; Slaking is probably very effective here, or Psych Up / Selfdestruct / EQ / Sub Snorlax, which takes better care of Regirock. But the Struggle strategy, while being insanely cool IMO, sadly can’t be used for serious runs. Also it takes ages; I’ll definitely make some bonus content out of it.
So I still need a dedicated sweeper and just run Thunderbolt instead of the fascinating Recycle. Having the luxury of Struggling opponents, I figured I didn’t want slower setup Pokémon like Snorlax, because those always get haxed by the two following opponents sooner or later. The Lapras from the mono Ice team makes an exception because of Shell Armor. This rules out anything with Curse, so I looked into Ursaring or Granbull with Bulk Up / Salac Berry or Leftovers. They’re either too slow (and frail on the Special side) to reliably sweep, or have to run Salac Berry, which doesn’t let them fully setup sometimes due to crits. Also their Sub might be broken at low HP, after which a ‘still-faster’ opponent, Quick Claw activation or other scary stuff means the end. I want a fast sweeper without Salac Berry. That leaves Tauros and Swellow, but they can’t setup (although Swellow could maybe pull off something unreliable but funny with Endeavor). Or CAN they? We have finally arrived at the current team, but sadly I have no more time atm. To be added soon, as well as the detailed teams above.
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This is too funny. I was literally the other day thinking about whether a Starf Recycle set with Porygon2 (or Mr Mime but nah) would be at all viable, though my initial idea for a set was Substitute-Recover-*attacking move*-Recycle.Nice to hear you like the Mono Fire team! I've been thinking about Mono Normal yesterday, and today I started experimenting with a lot of stuff. This is probably the most difficult team to build because contains so many options to consider. Playing with around 4 or 5 teams that really do something different, I think I finally came up with a pretty sturdy one, and it sure is original (even if I say so myself). In fact, I use two moves I'm pretty confident of no one ever considered for a Battle Tower team yet, and using obscure moves makes it so much more fun. Especially when it's actually effective. While experimenting, I had some really fun battles/strategies even though they didn't make it to the final team, but I'll save them as Bonus Content or something.
For Mono Normal, I'd like to share my thought process in greater detail because I went pretty nuts at some points. First of all, I thought of setup sweepers that I expected to be most effective, i.e. when they are fully set up. Creating the opportunity for them to do that was for later. Curselax comes to mind first, of course, but Belly Drum Clefable, CM Blissey, Bulk Up Granbull, Curse Miltank and probably some others are interesting as well.
BELLY DRUM CLEFABLE
So what does Normal offer in the crippling department? Miltank sure caught my attention, because it's one of two physically bulky Thunder Wave users (the other being Granbull), has enough speed to outspeed all Metagross without much investment, gets Milk Drink and room for filler moves, such as Mud-Slap, Growl, Flash or a useful attacking move like Shadow Ball and Earthquake. In fact, Miltank impressed me so much I decided to give it a run alongside Cosmic Power / Belly Drum / Sub / Double-Edge Clefable @ Leftovers, because this set doesn't require much preparation to setup (paralysis and one or two evasion falls is good, so Miltank had Twave / Flash / Milk Drink / EQ for Metagross) and solve eventual problems encountered with the empty third Pokémon slot. Until then, I had a dummy Ditto waiting in the third spot to remind me the team wasn't finished yet. Of course, I knew already that Clefable couldn't touch Gengar but that problem is easy to take care of later. The setup went moderately well in most cases and Clefable sweeps through with relative ease, because it has just enough speed to outrun very dangerous Quick Claw (ab)users and enough bulk for its Substitute to not get broken at +6 Def / SpD. Also, the HP lost from Double-Edge didn't seem to be a problem because I can "Cosmic Power to full health with Leftovers" before killing the first Pokémon (most Pokémon can't break Clefable's Sub in four turns, especially when their Accuracy is reduced). Physically defensive Steel- and Rock-types, especially Regis, remain dangerous because of their ability to setup Curse or Double Team, and of course Ghosts are a problem, although I can sweep the last Pokémon with Struggle if needed unless they use Seismic Toss (Dusclops). The Pokémon that solves these problems the best and also provides bulk and utility to the team is Psych Up Snorlax; it copies contingent Curse boosts from Regis and destroys them with EQ. It easily wins against Ghost-types with Shadow Ball and can ChestoRest again lead Calm Mind opponents. This resulted in the team below, but problems with Clefable not being able to setup reliably against too many Pokémon eventually convinced me to try other strategies, as I couldn’t figure out a way to solve all problems simultaneously. CM setup sweepers critting through Lax, (too) many critical hits while setting up with Clefable, Leftovers falling short of healing enough during setup and Miltank not being able to cripple the lead sometimes, together with the impossibility to remove Quick Claws are just examples of things that could and shall go wrong at some point.
[Spoiler: Detailed sets of Attempt #1, "Clefable", to be added]
CURSELAX
I needed a more reliable setup, and preferably sweep with two moves, because a monotype Normal attacker leaves some opponents in a position to become threatening. Also, I want to attack from behind a Substitute, which doesn’t keep breaking during setup if I have to bank on Leftovers for recovery. Obviously, my first gut said “use Curselax, don’t try anything stupid just to be creative, first try to actually win”. So what kind of support does Curselax need to setup? Lowered attack (possibly with lowered accuracy), not having to setup against Fighting-type moves, preferably a paralyzed opponent (because it does outspeed opponents before getting bulky enough to the point where its Sub doesn’t break) and enough Special Defense to take advantage of crippled Special Attackers. AND it needs to pre-Sub against anticipated Sub breaks. Blissey is naturally bulky, cripples all Special Attackers with Flash and Thunder Wave, outspeeds Metagross to Skill Swap it and steals Quick Claws. It has Serene Grace, because the AI will switch out Natural Cure Pokémon that get paralyzed occasionally. This gives Metagross Serene Grace, but its Meteor Mash boosts will be compensated by my second Pokémon. Speaking of Attack reduces, Intimidate Pokémon come to mind (Granbull learns Charm as well), but they are also weak to Fighting, or not bulky to begin with. I ended up using Pidgeot, of all things, as it learns Featherdance (which is WAY cooler than Charm), is surprisingly bulky due to its high HP (therefore able to hard switch into Fighting-types), fast enough to outspeed Heracross and actually pull something off before getting haxed in general, and able to learn Sand-Attack. It gets to use at least one crippling move against all physical opponents, usually two because of Sitrus Berry. Thief is a nice insurance when Sitrus Berry is consumed, should Blissey not be able to steal their item. Lowering evasion is a luxury move, but very welcome in setting up Snorlax. On paper, not a problem to be seen, right? Okay then, not except crit Quick Claw Meteor Mash on Turn 1, but I’ll accept that.
That’s what I proudly thought when walking along the beach yesterday while thinking everything out, leaving the moveset and EV optimization for when I got home. This resulted into the following team:
[Spoiler: Detailed sets of Attempt #2, "Curselax", to be added]
Still turns out that Snorlax can’t setup against Calm Minders, even if they have -6 Accuracy, because it Sub breaks and doesn’t outspeed them. I tried to work around that problem with Seismic Toss Blissey, leaving the Accuracy-lowering to Pidgeot instead. My expectations of Pidgeot were too high, as it’s pretty frail on the Special side, even against non-Calm Mind boosted attacks. On top of that, Metagross likes to use Explosion on Pidgeot (since it’s the only move in its set which Kos after Featherdance) ruining the whole setup, and finally, sweeping is always a risk at low speed, because Snorlax remains vulnerable against OHKOs and other forms of hax. Registeel does it better because of it resists a plethora of moves, and even Registeel is shaky when a crit breaks its sub sometimes. Still, I was pretty happy with this team and expected it to become my standard, but I wanted to give a shot at constructing a Trick team too, a strategy I’m pretty familiar with as you know.
TRICK BUILD
This opened up so many possibilities, fun strategies and also challenges that it nearly gave me a headache at some point. Obviously, Linoone is a decent Trick lead (nowhere near as effective as Alakazam though), although I was also willing to consider Kecleon and Furret, if they suit the other Pokémon better somehow (e.g. Furret potentially has more bulk at the cost of being outsped by more Pokémon and Kecleon is Specially bulky, has Skill Swap and Color Change might prove useful I guess).
The aforementioned sweepers come to mind as options for the third Pokémon, but if I can get the opponent to Struggle I have many choices of how to setup, so that wasn’t my immediate concern; the really interesting part is the second “glue” Pokémon that takes advantages of the opponent’s Choice Band while crippling their lead. Normal-types aren’t known for their physical bulk either except Miltank to an extent (who can’t really do anything to cripple Metagross), so I expected staying alive against Choice Band-locked Pokémon to be a challenge on its own. During the consideration of bulky Normal-types and getting frustrated about the lack of useful resistances in this pool, suddenly it came to me: could CONVERSION (2) bring something to this kind of team? To be honest I didn’t even memorize the exact mechanics of the moves, but I vaguely remembered it had something to do with converting into a STAB-gaining or resisting type. Conversion 2 gives Porygon2 a RANDOM type that resists the last move that used on it (so I can repeatedly use it to get an immune type sometimes!). Could be interesting against a Choice-locked opponent I thought, especially with Protect so I can convert my time without having to take damage first against slower opponents. This isn’t possible, however, because attack actually has to LAND on Porygon2 in order to work. Luckily, Conversion 2 DOES work after using Substitute, which is also a good move. Porygon2 survives nearly all critical hits from faster Pokémon when its type is still Normal, and after Conversion it actually stalls out ALL possible moves, save Meteor Mashes that are boosted too much. Also, it outspeeds the powerful Fighting-type Pokémon. And Trace is pretty good too, e.g. against Levitate EQ users or Jolteon. Could this really work?
As a filler, I first considered Flash or Icy Wind, but ultimately realised the necessity of Thunderbolt because that lets it beat Metagross 1v1; Metagross will nearly always acquire Attack boosts so it just has to die. Comfortingly, non-invested Thunderbolt turns out to have more uses. Scrolling through Porygon2’s other moves, I also noted Recycle. Because Porygon2 had so much time left while testing early versions of this team, I figured a Starf Berry Recycling set strangely might turn it into a sweeper after it gets foes Struggling. When it also needs to fulfill the crippling role, however, it needs Conversion2 as well and therefore has no attacking moves. After a while I thought “so what, its STAB is too situational anyway (see Clefable), could't it actually SWEEP WITH STRUGGLE when it had the equivalent has 6 Ancientpower boosts?” Yes, it can. It can even 3HKO Regirock, is not resisted, only takes ¼ damage from Struggle, can Recover up to full health before it runs out of PP and probably be behind a Substitute, has an 80 base Attack stat which is greater than I remembered… And so I made my personal favorite moveset in my entire Advance career.
[Spoiler: Detailed sets of Attempt #3, "TECHNOLOGY", to be added]
Porygon2 @ Starf Berry ** TECHNOLOGY
Ability: Trace
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -Def)
- Substitute
- Conversion 2
- Recover
- Recycle
Sounds too good to be true: if Linoone can Trick, I win. And because the crippler IS the sweeper, I have a wild card left to ensure Trick works. While testing, however, I saw that Porygon is often not yet fully setup with random boosts before the opponent kills itself with Struggle. Finishing boosting against the second Pokémon works most of the time, but Porygon sometimes doesn’t get through it with a Substitute intact, and Struggle doesn’t OHKO many Pokémon, leaving me vulnerable to OHKOs, Curse Regirock, Quick Claw and status. First I used lead Stantler, helping Linoone with Intimidate/Thunder Wave and most importantly, reducing opponent’s Attack so their CB crit Struggle doesn’t KO Porygon2 when it’s at half health, guaranteeing me to get into Starf range every time. Using the wild card to finish off last Pokémon is certainly possible too; Slaking is probably very effective here, or Psych Up / Selfdestruct / EQ / Sub Snorlax, which takes better care of Regirock. But the Struggle strategy, while being insanely cool IMO, sadly can’t be used for serious runs. Also it takes ages; I’ll definitely make some bonus content out of it.
So I still need a dedicated sweeper and just run Thunderbolt instead of the fascinating Recycle. Having the luxury of Struggling opponents, I figured I didn’t want slower setup Pokémon like Snorlax, because those always get haxed by the two following opponents sooner or later. The Lapras from the mono Ice team makes an exception because of Shell Armor. This rules out anything with Curse, so I looked into Ursaring or Granbull with Bulk Up / Salac Berry or Leftovers. They’re either too slow (and frail on the Special side) to reliably sweep, or have to run Salac Berry, which doesn’t let them fully setup sometimes due to crits. Also their Sub might be broken at low HP, after which a ‘still-faster’ opponent, Quick Claw activation or other scary stuff means the end. I want a fast sweeper without Salac Berry. That leaves Tauros and Swellow, but they can’t setup (although Swellow could maybe pull off something unreliable but funny with Endeavor). Or CAN they? We have finally arrived at the current team, but sadly I have no more time atm. To be added soon, as well as the detailed teams above.
I definitely think there's mileage in Pidgeot (or even Dodrio on a more offensive bent - much more frail but having access to options like Haze, Endeavour, Torment, and Baton Pass is not to be sniffed at - though as I typed that I just remembered that the latter is illegal with the first two), but what about Girafarig? It's decently fast (by Frontier standards) and has access to Baton Pass. It still doesn't stand up brilliantly to Metagross but has enough options to make a semi-decent crippler.
Idk. I'm just throwing ideas at the wall (it's late).
I tried a Porygon2 you mentioned as well, with Tri Attack as the attacking move. This is better than a more powerful STAB imo, because of that 20% chance to inflict a status on, say, Regirock. It not being able to touch Ghost-types is outweighed by getting STAB and being able to beat them with Struggle anyway. I guess Porygon itself could be used as a sweeper on the Trick team alongside Porygon2 (I'd still use the latter for crippling because Porygon just doesn't have enough bulk), but it really has to use a Special attack (would probably be Ice Beam).
Mr. Mime isn't a bad StarfRecycle user, because I think it actually has the potential to sweep with Future Sight. If that's the case, we might see it on the Psychic team, haven't really been into that one yet but of course Trick comes to mind. On the other hand, a simple "powerhouse team" containing Metagross, Latias and something like Claydol or Slowbro would probably be good as well.
Dodrio has cool moves indeed, but on that Pidgeot team I really need the bulk + Featherdance. Too bad it can't pass or use more than Agility and pinch berries and has too much trouble not dying even to the moves Torment + Protect would cancel. Endeavor is fantastic; considered Lv. 17 Smeargle, who outspeeds everything at +6 with 51 Speed and beats everything with Dragon Rage. A Spore/Sub/DR/Endeavor set with 3 Agilities passed will be featured in the bonus video (couldn't keep myself from spoiling the surprise), among other things.
Mr. Mime isn't a bad StarfRecycle user, because I think it actually has the potential to sweep with Future Sight. If that's the case, we might see it on the Psychic team, haven't really been into that one yet but of course Trick comes to mind. On the other hand, a simple "powerhouse team" containing Metagross, Latias and something like Claydol or Slowbro would probably be good as well.
Dodrio has cool moves indeed, but on that Pidgeot team I really need the bulk + Featherdance. Too bad it can't pass or use more than Agility and pinch berries and has too much trouble not dying even to the moves Torment + Protect would cancel. Endeavor is fantastic; considered Lv. 17 Smeargle, who outspeeds everything at +6 with 51 Speed and beats everything with Dragon Rage. A Spore/Sub/DR/Endeavor set with 3 Agilities passed will be featured in the bonus video (couldn't keep myself from spoiling the surprise), among other things.
With the introduction being done (still have to add the other teams as well), it's time for the Mono Normal team I ended up with. The choice for the Pokémon is already explained, so let's continue where we left off. We need a speedy attacker with decent bulk to take advantage of a Struggling opponent. Since fast Normal-types aren't really bulky (save Slaking, who is designed to have other problems), that makes it attractive to consider Intimidate Pokémon, but the only boosting ones (Granbull is too slow and Stantler has to use Calm Mind, which it sucks at) seem bad. Let's turn Tauros into a mean, angry bull in another way then!
Mono Normal
Linoone @ Choice Band
Ability: Pickup
EVs: 204 HP / 4 Atk / 68 Def / 232 Spe
Jolly Nature (+Spe, -Atk)
IVs: 30 SpA / 30 SpD / 30 Spe
- Trick
- Charm
- Thunder Wave
- Hidden Power [Flying] / Shadow Ball
Linoone is bulkier than Alakazam, so it actually survives Ursaring's Quick Claw Double-Edge before Tricking. It doesn't survive hardcore Special Attacks such as 194 SpA Moltres' Fire Blast 100% of the time, but Moltres would have to crit through Porygon2 because Trace copies its Pressure ability.
Charm is a nice present Alakazam doesn't have either, and custom-made for this strategy. It has lots of PP to use against non-attacking leads, lowers their Attack to -6 (even when they use Dragon Dance / Curse / Swords Dance), so I can be pretty sure their Struggle won't pose any problems if they don't crit too often in succession against Tauros.
I don't use Thunder Wave much, but it's a nice speed controlling measure against faster-than-Tauros opponents such as Crobat and it also cripples Pokémon that have so much Special Attack Porygon2 would be in a problem when they crit the first / second hit (and would kill Porygon2 even when Conversion 2 is used). This is rare, because Porygon2 has a Salac Berry to Recover BEFORE they use their second attack, although some of the Special Attackers still outspeed such as Latios and Moltres.
Lastly, Hidden Power [Flying] is for Breloom; it OHKOes with Choice Band. It doesn't Always OHKO Heracross, but I just use Charm against that because it can't Sleep me, and Conversion 2 has good probability of getting a Bug-resistant type even when it uses a Fighting move (think of Flying, Bug, Ghost and Poison). Shadow Ball is a good alternative if you're not too worried about Breloom, because that gives the team an extra Gengar/Misdreavus counter, but Porygon2 takes good care of them with its filler move anyway.
Porygon2 @ Salac Berry
Ability: Trace
EVs: 252 HP / 236 Def / 4 SpA / 4 SpD / 12 Spe
Bold Nature (+Def, -Atk)
- Substitute
- Conversion 2
- Recover
- Psychic
Damn you're a cool duck. Stall out nearly all CB moves by using Conversion 2, sometimes even repeatedly using it to get an immune type. This also prevents Double-Edge users from knocking themselves out, because I'll get Ghost quite soon.
With 32 Recover PP and good bulk, it can even outstall non-CB Pokémon in a pinch, e.g. when Explosion is used against Linoone. This makes the setup much longer than needed and not very reliable, because them having CB is pretty much why Conversion 2 works in the first place.
This set survives even a +1 Atk CB Meteor Mash from Metagross, possibly the greatest threat to the team. The slower Porygon2 then uses Conversion 2 to convert into Water / Electric / Steel, activates Salac Berry and outspeeds Metagross while using Recover. Then it hopefully stalls out the remaining Meteor Mashes, after which Metagross kills itself with Struggle eventually. If things go wrong somewhere, an unboosted Tauros can always finish Metagross, although Earthquake doesn't do that much at +0.
The filler slot used to be Thunderbolt to fight Gengar/Misdreavus, which Tauros can't touch, and Metagross/Regirock (I wanted a Special Attack to make use of its naturally higher SpA), but I realized Metagross will Struggle itself to death anyway, so went with Psychic. This gives Porygon2 a general finishing move as well, should Tauros get beaten by a bulkier Pokémon when it hasn't got many boosts, 2HKOes Gengar and has the added chance of lowering Special Defense, which could be the difference in beating something.
Tauros @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 28 Def / 4 SpD / 220 Spe
Jolly Nature (+Spe, -SpA)
- Rage
- Substitute
- Return
- Earthquake
"Are you serious, RAGE?" Well, I think this is the first time I've used it as well, but if it's used at all I think it's gotta be in this way (reminds me of Rage/Dig Mew in Gen 1, taking advantage of Dig/Fly mechanics, but that's another story). Against physically offensively crippled Struggling opponents that have no accuracy drops, it's actually some sort of Meditate! On average, I can use 4 Rages before I have to Substitute (Rage would kill the fodder at some point), which already lets Tauros OHKO the majority of the Tower Pokémon. But even if I only get to +2 or +3, Tauros' decent staying power, magnificent Speed still lets it sweep the remaining opponents with STAB Return (this is about as strong as max Attack Salamence's Hidden Power Flying). It outspeeds the 172 tier and has some EVs left for bulk; with these EVs its Substitute don't break against Struggles and a little Defense is good anyway if the opponent crits one or more times with Struggle.
First I wasn't sure which item to give Tauros (thought of Liechi / Double-Edge as well, and even Salac, for example), but Leftovers is definitely the way. The HP it gradually gives provides a cushion against critical hit Struggles and also compensates HP lost from Poison Point activation, for example, because I need to use Rage. Especially when I can't boost that often, it's important to be at a somewhat higher HP to make use of Tauros' tanking capabilities.
I'd use 152 HP and one point less Defense because that increases the size of my Substitutes, but that would mean Heracross has 62.5% chance of OHKOing me with Brick Break instead of 50%, should it get past Porygon2 with a Critical Hit (it has done that).
While this is not the most dependable Monotype team until now, I really had joy in making it because of its "strangeness". It's certainly less boring than a "powerhouse" team consisting of e.g. Slaking, Blissey and Snorlax, but not only that; I think it actually wins way more often than such a team could.
During the Sample Streak, things went quite smoothly, although the dangers shine through at some points. Have fun!
Mono Normal
Linoone @ Choice Band
Ability: Pickup
EVs: 204 HP / 4 Atk / 68 Def / 232 Spe
Jolly Nature (+Spe, -Atk)
IVs: 30 SpA / 30 SpD / 30 Spe
- Trick
- Charm
- Thunder Wave
- Hidden Power [Flying] / Shadow Ball
Linoone is bulkier than Alakazam, so it actually survives Ursaring's Quick Claw Double-Edge before Tricking. It doesn't survive hardcore Special Attacks such as 194 SpA Moltres' Fire Blast 100% of the time, but Moltres would have to crit through Porygon2 because Trace copies its Pressure ability.
Charm is a nice present Alakazam doesn't have either, and custom-made for this strategy. It has lots of PP to use against non-attacking leads, lowers their Attack to -6 (even when they use Dragon Dance / Curse / Swords Dance), so I can be pretty sure their Struggle won't pose any problems if they don't crit too often in succession against Tauros.
I don't use Thunder Wave much, but it's a nice speed controlling measure against faster-than-Tauros opponents such as Crobat and it also cripples Pokémon that have so much Special Attack Porygon2 would be in a problem when they crit the first / second hit (and would kill Porygon2 even when Conversion 2 is used). This is rare, because Porygon2 has a Salac Berry to Recover BEFORE they use their second attack, although some of the Special Attackers still outspeed such as Latios and Moltres.
Lastly, Hidden Power [Flying] is for Breloom; it OHKOes with Choice Band. It doesn't Always OHKO Heracross, but I just use Charm against that because it can't Sleep me, and Conversion 2 has good probability of getting a Bug-resistant type even when it uses a Fighting move (think of Flying, Bug, Ghost and Poison). Shadow Ball is a good alternative if you're not too worried about Breloom, because that gives the team an extra Gengar/Misdreavus counter, but Porygon2 takes good care of them with its filler move anyway.
Porygon2 @ Salac Berry
Ability: Trace
EVs: 252 HP / 236 Def / 4 SpA / 4 SpD / 12 Spe
Bold Nature (+Def, -Atk)
- Substitute
- Conversion 2
- Recover
- Psychic
Damn you're a cool duck. Stall out nearly all CB moves by using Conversion 2, sometimes even repeatedly using it to get an immune type. This also prevents Double-Edge users from knocking themselves out, because I'll get Ghost quite soon.
With 32 Recover PP and good bulk, it can even outstall non-CB Pokémon in a pinch, e.g. when Explosion is used against Linoone. This makes the setup much longer than needed and not very reliable, because them having CB is pretty much why Conversion 2 works in the first place.
This set survives even a +1 Atk CB Meteor Mash from Metagross, possibly the greatest threat to the team. The slower Porygon2 then uses Conversion 2 to convert into Water / Electric / Steel, activates Salac Berry and outspeeds Metagross while using Recover. Then it hopefully stalls out the remaining Meteor Mashes, after which Metagross kills itself with Struggle eventually. If things go wrong somewhere, an unboosted Tauros can always finish Metagross, although Earthquake doesn't do that much at +0.
The filler slot used to be Thunderbolt to fight Gengar/Misdreavus, which Tauros can't touch, and Metagross/Regirock (I wanted a Special Attack to make use of its naturally higher SpA), but I realized Metagross will Struggle itself to death anyway, so went with Psychic. This gives Porygon2 a general finishing move as well, should Tauros get beaten by a bulkier Pokémon when it hasn't got many boosts, 2HKOes Gengar and has the added chance of lowering Special Defense, which could be the difference in beating something.
Tauros @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 28 Def / 4 SpD / 220 Spe
Jolly Nature (+Spe, -SpA)
- Rage
- Substitute
- Return
- Earthquake
"Are you serious, RAGE?" Well, I think this is the first time I've used it as well, but if it's used at all I think it's gotta be in this way (reminds me of Rage/Dig Mew in Gen 1, taking advantage of Dig/Fly mechanics, but that's another story). Against physically offensively crippled Struggling opponents that have no accuracy drops, it's actually some sort of Meditate! On average, I can use 4 Rages before I have to Substitute (Rage would kill the fodder at some point), which already lets Tauros OHKO the majority of the Tower Pokémon. But even if I only get to +2 or +3, Tauros' decent staying power, magnificent Speed still lets it sweep the remaining opponents with STAB Return (this is about as strong as max Attack Salamence's Hidden Power Flying). It outspeeds the 172 tier and has some EVs left for bulk; with these EVs its Substitute don't break against Struggles and a little Defense is good anyway if the opponent crits one or more times with Struggle.
First I wasn't sure which item to give Tauros (thought of Liechi / Double-Edge as well, and even Salac, for example), but Leftovers is definitely the way. The HP it gradually gives provides a cushion against critical hit Struggles and also compensates HP lost from Poison Point activation, for example, because I need to use Rage. Especially when I can't boost that often, it's important to be at a somewhat higher HP to make use of Tauros' tanking capabilities.
I'd use 152 HP and one point less Defense because that increases the size of my Substitutes, but that would mean Heracross has 62.5% chance of OHKOing me with Brick Break instead of 50%, should it get past Porygon2 with a Critical Hit (it has done that).
While this is not the most dependable Monotype team until now, I really had joy in making it because of its "strangeness". It's certainly less boring than a "powerhouse" team consisting of e.g. Slaking, Blissey and Snorlax, but not only that; I think it actually wins way more often than such a team could.
During the Sample Streak, things went quite smoothly, although the dangers shine through at some points. Have fun!
Today I'll share the tenth monotype, featuring a mono Grass team. I made the team a while ago, but wasn't completely satisfied with it at first. After finetuning the strategy, I think it's ready!
Defensively, the Grass-types have HUGE problems against Flying-type assaults, because only Cradily isn't weak to them, and aside from Cradily, Ludicolo would have to take care of nearly all Fire-type opponents. Additionally, Grass-types can't setup effectively with Calm Mind, say, and all the Swords Dance users are either a tad too slow (Breloom, Victreebel, Venusaur, Tropius) or too weak to sweep, such as Jumpluff. On the specially attacking side, however, there's Growth, Chlorophyll Sunnybeaming, Dream Eater Exeggutor I guess, and of course Sleep Powder is available on many Pokémon. I don't like to use 75%-accurate moves, however, unless it's backed up with Accuracy drops / Evasion boosts and Substitute. Finally we have Leech Seed, one of the best moves in the game. That was my initial idea of the Grass-type: many things to work with, but everything has clear downsides and the absence of bulk had me worried.
Idea number 1 - Sweet Scent + 'classic sweeping'
Make Sleep Powder 1.33 * 75% = 99.75% accurate by using Sweet Scent first. This would make sweepers such as Venusaur and Victreebel able to setup with Sleep Powder, Substitute and Swords Dance without fear of missing Sleep Powder. Sadly, they can only use one attacking move, which never covers anything. First I tried using Growth Salac Berry Venusaur who then recovers HP with an ('Overgrown') Giga Drain, which has good chances of even OHKOing Metagross for example. The recovered HP makes it less prone to hax, and if the extra power of Overgrow is needed against other opponents it just Subs down again, possibly making of use (the now less-accurate) Sleep Powder. Since Venusaur needs to outspeed the opponent, I thought of using Icy Wind / Sweet Scent / Thief / Filler Ludicolo. This is a great lead, because it tanks almost everything thrown at it (even Muk's Sludge Bomb), after which it outspeeds the opponent itself and uses something else useful. When it already outspeeds the opponent, it can Sweet Scent AND Thief, removing Quick Claw or Chesto/Lum in the process. This was the Venusaur sweeping set:
Venusaur @ Salac Berry ** OVERGROWN
Ability: Overgrow
EVs: 76 Def / 252 SpA / 180 Spe
Modest Nature (+SpA, -Atk)
- Sleep Powder
- Substitute
- Growth
- Giga Drain
The leftover EVs went into Def instead of HP to increase Giga Drain's healing % capabilities. Venusaur can make 4 Subs, should many early wake ups occur during setup, but Overgrown already works at 1/3 HP so that's useful (just as with Scizor on the Bug-type team).
As a third Pokémon, I wanted to have something that can beat everything Venusaur can't, even when fully setup. And this is MUCH... Somewhat bulkier Fire-types, legendary birds, Gengar, Skarmory, you name it. I tried to use Cradily to prevent SOME of these Pokémon from running rampage through the team, but it was all in vain. This Venusaur is a bad sweeper. Although I kept it in mind for the mono Poison team, where it might not have to use Sleep Powder, opening a slot for HP[Ice]. And then it might even work (testing Magical Leaf atm).
I tried to make Sweet Scent / Sleep Powder or even Grasswhistle work in other ways, but none of them are worthy of sharing.
Idea number 2 - Recoil Breloom
So Sweet Scent + Sleep Powder has the problem of wasting a Sleep Powder moveslot on a sweeper, and so it needs 3 setup moves in a sense. Also, there's Spore of course, but first I didn't think Breloom was going to be able to sweep, even with Sub + Spore. While Breloom is a very dangerous Pokémon, it NEEDS to have Salac Berry activated, so it can use Spore first against faster opponents who have a Lum/Chesto Berry, of which there are too many to neglect. And while it tries to activate that Salac Berry using a Substitute, the opponent might wake up. This can't be prevented if you want to use something like Brick Break and HP[Ghost], for example. If Leech Seed is used, Breloom has the problem of recovering too much health to actually ACTIVATE the Salac Berry in the first place. Either it has too much HP, or it has to risk the opponent waking up and breaking a Sub. I thought I found a solution:
Breloom @ Salac Berry ** RECOIL
Ability: Effect Spore
EVs: 4 Def / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature (+Atk, - SpA)
IVs: 0 HP
- Spore
- Substitute
- Leech Seed
- Double-Edge
This Breloom can knock itself into Salac range with a high-attack Double-Edge WHILE having a Substitute up. Luckily, Salac activates before health is replenished by Leech Seed, so this works AFTER seeding the opponent. Problem solved, right? As a bonus, Breloom would have a nice attacking move against fellow Grass-types.
Nope. Double-Edge often knocks out the opponent too fast, and if they have a lot of HP, Double-Edge might not even knock me into Salac range anymore after the first Leech Seed heal. No matter what third Pokémon I used, this idea eventually got ditched as well.
Idea number 3 - Subseeding
Again, the idea is to start off with Ludicolo, run a subseeder that can sweep a team, and a Pokémon to take care of problems. The fastest subseeder is Sceptile, and it also has lower HP than Jumpluff, making it an ideal candidate. Its tremendous Speed allows it to be used at Level 46, to have even lower HP (which has 0 IVs as well, of course). Leech Seed has non-perfect accuracy, however, so Substitute and Leech Seed need to be complemented with Double Team if I want the onslaught to go on against other Pokémon than the lead without fearing a miss. That leaves a filler move to take care of Grass-types and stall Rest/Recover users better: I figured Seismic Toss is the best, as it generally defeats Grass-types at +6 Evasion, although HP[Fire] or Aerial Ace could be used as well.
Lv. 46 Sceptile @ Leftovers / Brightpowder ** SUBSEEDER
Ability: Overgrow
EVs: 252 Def / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature (+Spe, -Atk)
- Substitute
- Leech Seed
- Double Team
- Seismic Toss
As a third Pokémon, I considered CB Cradily (this thing beats Heracross), and Sleep Powder Jumpluff, who can make use of Sweet Scent + Sleep Powder and lowers the opponent's accuracy with Flash, and can also start a subseed thing of its own. Breloom was also in the back of my mind still. Subseeding worked so well it eventually became my standard team, but during optimization I realized Jumpluff is actually a better subseeder than Sceptile for various reasons, and Breloom is the best third member, because it has the luxury choice of being able to sweep on its own OR help Jumpluff. Here we go!
Mono Grass
Ludicolo @ [No Item]
Ability: Swift Swim
EVs: 212 HP / 204 Def / 92 Spe
Bold Nature (+Def, -Atk)
- Icy Wind
- Thief
- Flash
- Leech Seed
Ludicolo, the constant lead throughout testing Mono Grass ideas, and I must say it does the job really well because it survives moves it's weak to. After Icy Wind, my other team members outspeed everything in the game. Thief steals Quick Claws, sleep-curing berries and as a bonus, Brightpowder, ensuring Breloom always hits with Spore. If Ludicolo can use even one Flash, Jumpluff already has around 76% chance to fish for a miss with its 5 Substitutes, but with two Flashes (~9%) it's better to try that. Three Flashes: ~3%, four Flashes: ~1.4%, five Flashes: ~0.6%, six Flashes: ~0.4%. And then Jumpluff still lives, so in order to kill it they need to hit another move. Flash is used over Mud-Slap because Flying-types are actually a threat, and Breloom also has chances to use it if it misses. Against Clear Body Pokémon, Leech Seed is useful for both other members on the way out; Breloom then takes care of them with high HP left.
With these EV's, Ludicolo survives Muk's (who annoyingly has Sticky Hold) Sludge Bomb guaranteed (with the maximum HP EVs possible to increase Special bulk as well), and therewith also stuff like Crobat's moves, the most powerful Aerial Aces (Salamence's), Ursaring's Double-Edge, et cetera. 92 Speed EVs lets it outspeed the neutral 100 BS tier after Icy Wind. At 102 speed, it also outspeeds those dangerous QC OHKO'ers, minimizing their chance to wreak havoc after turn 1.
Jumpluff @ Leftovers
Ability: Chlorophyll
EVs: 36 Atk / 252 Def / 220 Spe
Jolly Nature (+Spe, -SpA)
IVs: 20 HP
- Substitute
- Leech Seed
- Double Team
- Aerial Ace
Jumpluff is a better subseeder than Sceptile, because it survives Megahorn and gets STAB on Aerial Ace, which beats all Grass-types not named Cradily if I have Evasion up, also if they Double Team up. The perfect accuracy move also helps in bringing Pokémon down faster, which saves PP. Although Jumpluff can't really punish Rest-looping opponents, that's what Breloom is for when I get stuck. Jumpluff does (royally) have enough PP to stall out a Recover user though.
I thought of lowering Jumpluff's level, but that conflicts with surviving Megahorn and, most importantly, opposing Aerial Aces. With the current EV's, it survives most of the Aerial Aces with enough HP left to use Substitute (so I can then Subseed stall them; e.g. against max HP Salamence I heal exactly my Sub HP with Leech Seed and Leftovers). 20 HP IV's gets it to 145, a useful '1 modulo 16' mark which makes its Sub require one less HP than with 31 HP IV's and makes Jumpluff able to use Substitute 5 times.
Although Jumpluff survives Heracross' Megahorn in a pinch, I don't switch in Jumpluff after it kills Ludicolo, because I don't KO it anyway without 240 Attack EVs iirc, and even then it might use Endure, which could totally destroy me if it has Swarm. Instead, I got Breloom for Heracross.
Breloom @ Salac Berry
Ability: Effect Spore
EVs: 124 Atk / 132 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature (+Spe, -SpA)
- Spore
- Substitute
- Flash
- Brick Break
Breloom makes maximum use of Ludicolo's Thief (and possibly Icy Wind), as it Spore/Sub loops the opponent while reducing its Accuracy with Flash in order to let Jumpluff start its strategy. This is necessary if Ludicolo can't get Flashes off. It can also choose to sweep itself, if their team likely contains suitable Pokémon for that, and this is sometimes less risky than switching in Jumpluff on a potential wake-up. Letting Breloom get killed is also an option, but sometimes Jumpluff needs Breloom to win against, say, Leftovers Cradily or when it runs out of PP. Breloom is a surprisingly good switchin against the things that would deplete Jumpluff's PP a lot (also e.g. Anabel's Snorlax). Brick Break is pretty powerful even with 'leftover' Attack EV's, 2HKOing many Quick Claw Pokémon Ice-types and easily sweeping through sleeping opponents.
Breloom is EV'ed to survive Heracross' Megahorn and holds Salac Berry, so it outspeeds even the Lum Berry variants after deleting their berry with Spore, which allows Jumpluff to sweep safely if Breloom gets a Flash off.
All in all, I'm pretty confident with this team. The scariest threat I've seen until now is Quick Claw Slowking / Slowbro with Ice Beam as the second or third Pokémon. Jumpluff stays in vs them and tries to kill them as quickly as possible. If it gets hit by QC Ice Beam (remember it has 6 Double Teams as well), Breloom can still come in and Spore them while they are seeded, providing their QC doesn't immediately activate again.
In the Sample Streak, I used another Ludicolo set which has 116 Speed, enabling it to outspeed the 172 Speed tier after Icy Wind, but I realized it's way more important to survive Muk's Sludge Bomb / Dodrio's Drill Peck / et cetera. So the set presented here is BETTER than the one in the video. Somewhere today I'll replace the video with a new one.
EDIT: Realised Ludicolo is way bulkier on the Special side as a bonus, with 212 HP / 204 Def / 92 Spe, so I updated the moveset above.
Defensively, the Grass-types have HUGE problems against Flying-type assaults, because only Cradily isn't weak to them, and aside from Cradily, Ludicolo would have to take care of nearly all Fire-type opponents. Additionally, Grass-types can't setup effectively with Calm Mind, say, and all the Swords Dance users are either a tad too slow (Breloom, Victreebel, Venusaur, Tropius) or too weak to sweep, such as Jumpluff. On the specially attacking side, however, there's Growth, Chlorophyll Sunnybeaming, Dream Eater Exeggutor I guess, and of course Sleep Powder is available on many Pokémon. I don't like to use 75%-accurate moves, however, unless it's backed up with Accuracy drops / Evasion boosts and Substitute. Finally we have Leech Seed, one of the best moves in the game. That was my initial idea of the Grass-type: many things to work with, but everything has clear downsides and the absence of bulk had me worried.
Idea number 1 - Sweet Scent + 'classic sweeping'
Make Sleep Powder 1.33 * 75% = 99.75% accurate by using Sweet Scent first. This would make sweepers such as Venusaur and Victreebel able to setup with Sleep Powder, Substitute and Swords Dance without fear of missing Sleep Powder. Sadly, they can only use one attacking move, which never covers anything. First I tried using Growth Salac Berry Venusaur who then recovers HP with an ('Overgrown') Giga Drain, which has good chances of even OHKOing Metagross for example. The recovered HP makes it less prone to hax, and if the extra power of Overgrow is needed against other opponents it just Subs down again, possibly making of use (the now less-accurate) Sleep Powder. Since Venusaur needs to outspeed the opponent, I thought of using Icy Wind / Sweet Scent / Thief / Filler Ludicolo. This is a great lead, because it tanks almost everything thrown at it (even Muk's Sludge Bomb), after which it outspeeds the opponent itself and uses something else useful. When it already outspeeds the opponent, it can Sweet Scent AND Thief, removing Quick Claw or Chesto/Lum in the process. This was the Venusaur sweeping set:
Venusaur @ Salac Berry ** OVERGROWN
Ability: Overgrow
EVs: 76 Def / 252 SpA / 180 Spe
Modest Nature (+SpA, -Atk)
- Sleep Powder
- Substitute
- Growth
- Giga Drain
The leftover EVs went into Def instead of HP to increase Giga Drain's healing % capabilities. Venusaur can make 4 Subs, should many early wake ups occur during setup, but Overgrown already works at 1/3 HP so that's useful (just as with Scizor on the Bug-type team).
As a third Pokémon, I wanted to have something that can beat everything Venusaur can't, even when fully setup. And this is MUCH... Somewhat bulkier Fire-types, legendary birds, Gengar, Skarmory, you name it. I tried to use Cradily to prevent SOME of these Pokémon from running rampage through the team, but it was all in vain. This Venusaur is a bad sweeper. Although I kept it in mind for the mono Poison team, where it might not have to use Sleep Powder, opening a slot for HP[Ice]. And then it might even work (testing Magical Leaf atm).
I tried to make Sweet Scent / Sleep Powder or even Grasswhistle work in other ways, but none of them are worthy of sharing.
Idea number 2 - Recoil Breloom
So Sweet Scent + Sleep Powder has the problem of wasting a Sleep Powder moveslot on a sweeper, and so it needs 3 setup moves in a sense. Also, there's Spore of course, but first I didn't think Breloom was going to be able to sweep, even with Sub + Spore. While Breloom is a very dangerous Pokémon, it NEEDS to have Salac Berry activated, so it can use Spore first against faster opponents who have a Lum/Chesto Berry, of which there are too many to neglect. And while it tries to activate that Salac Berry using a Substitute, the opponent might wake up. This can't be prevented if you want to use something like Brick Break and HP[Ghost], for example. If Leech Seed is used, Breloom has the problem of recovering too much health to actually ACTIVATE the Salac Berry in the first place. Either it has too much HP, or it has to risk the opponent waking up and breaking a Sub. I thought I found a solution:
Breloom @ Salac Berry ** RECOIL
Ability: Effect Spore
EVs: 4 Def / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature (+Atk, - SpA)
IVs: 0 HP
- Spore
- Substitute
- Leech Seed
- Double-Edge
This Breloom can knock itself into Salac range with a high-attack Double-Edge WHILE having a Substitute up. Luckily, Salac activates before health is replenished by Leech Seed, so this works AFTER seeding the opponent. Problem solved, right? As a bonus, Breloom would have a nice attacking move against fellow Grass-types.
Nope. Double-Edge often knocks out the opponent too fast, and if they have a lot of HP, Double-Edge might not even knock me into Salac range anymore after the first Leech Seed heal. No matter what third Pokémon I used, this idea eventually got ditched as well.
Idea number 3 - Subseeding
Again, the idea is to start off with Ludicolo, run a subseeder that can sweep a team, and a Pokémon to take care of problems. The fastest subseeder is Sceptile, and it also has lower HP than Jumpluff, making it an ideal candidate. Its tremendous Speed allows it to be used at Level 46, to have even lower HP (which has 0 IVs as well, of course). Leech Seed has non-perfect accuracy, however, so Substitute and Leech Seed need to be complemented with Double Team if I want the onslaught to go on against other Pokémon than the lead without fearing a miss. That leaves a filler move to take care of Grass-types and stall Rest/Recover users better: I figured Seismic Toss is the best, as it generally defeats Grass-types at +6 Evasion, although HP[Fire] or Aerial Ace could be used as well.
Lv. 46 Sceptile @ Leftovers / Brightpowder ** SUBSEEDER
Ability: Overgrow
EVs: 252 Def / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature (+Spe, -Atk)
- Substitute
- Leech Seed
- Double Team
- Seismic Toss
As a third Pokémon, I considered CB Cradily (this thing beats Heracross), and Sleep Powder Jumpluff, who can make use of Sweet Scent + Sleep Powder and lowers the opponent's accuracy with Flash, and can also start a subseed thing of its own. Breloom was also in the back of my mind still. Subseeding worked so well it eventually became my standard team, but during optimization I realized Jumpluff is actually a better subseeder than Sceptile for various reasons, and Breloom is the best third member, because it has the luxury choice of being able to sweep on its own OR help Jumpluff. Here we go!
Mono Grass
Ludicolo @ [No Item]
Ability: Swift Swim
EVs: 212 HP / 204 Def / 92 Spe
Bold Nature (+Def, -Atk)
- Icy Wind
- Thief
- Flash
- Leech Seed
Ludicolo, the constant lead throughout testing Mono Grass ideas, and I must say it does the job really well because it survives moves it's weak to. After Icy Wind, my other team members outspeed everything in the game. Thief steals Quick Claws, sleep-curing berries and as a bonus, Brightpowder, ensuring Breloom always hits with Spore. If Ludicolo can use even one Flash, Jumpluff already has around 76% chance to fish for a miss with its 5 Substitutes, but with two Flashes (~9%) it's better to try that. Three Flashes: ~3%, four Flashes: ~1.4%, five Flashes: ~0.6%, six Flashes: ~0.4%. And then Jumpluff still lives, so in order to kill it they need to hit another move. Flash is used over Mud-Slap because Flying-types are actually a threat, and Breloom also has chances to use it if it misses. Against Clear Body Pokémon, Leech Seed is useful for both other members on the way out; Breloom then takes care of them with high HP left.
With these EV's, Ludicolo survives Muk's (who annoyingly has Sticky Hold) Sludge Bomb guaranteed (with the maximum HP EVs possible to increase Special bulk as well), and therewith also stuff like Crobat's moves, the most powerful Aerial Aces (Salamence's), Ursaring's Double-Edge, et cetera. 92 Speed EVs lets it outspeed the neutral 100 BS tier after Icy Wind. At 102 speed, it also outspeeds those dangerous QC OHKO'ers, minimizing their chance to wreak havoc after turn 1.
Jumpluff @ Leftovers
Ability: Chlorophyll
EVs: 36 Atk / 252 Def / 220 Spe
Jolly Nature (+Spe, -SpA)
IVs: 20 HP
- Substitute
- Leech Seed
- Double Team
- Aerial Ace
Jumpluff is a better subseeder than Sceptile, because it survives Megahorn and gets STAB on Aerial Ace, which beats all Grass-types not named Cradily if I have Evasion up, also if they Double Team up. The perfect accuracy move also helps in bringing Pokémon down faster, which saves PP. Although Jumpluff can't really punish Rest-looping opponents, that's what Breloom is for when I get stuck. Jumpluff does (royally) have enough PP to stall out a Recover user though.
I thought of lowering Jumpluff's level, but that conflicts with surviving Megahorn and, most importantly, opposing Aerial Aces. With the current EV's, it survives most of the Aerial Aces with enough HP left to use Substitute (so I can then Subseed stall them; e.g. against max HP Salamence I heal exactly my Sub HP with Leech Seed and Leftovers). 20 HP IV's gets it to 145, a useful '1 modulo 16' mark which makes its Sub require one less HP than with 31 HP IV's and makes Jumpluff able to use Substitute 5 times.
Although Jumpluff survives Heracross' Megahorn in a pinch, I don't switch in Jumpluff after it kills Ludicolo, because I don't KO it anyway without 240 Attack EVs iirc, and even then it might use Endure, which could totally destroy me if it has Swarm. Instead, I got Breloom for Heracross.
Breloom @ Salac Berry
Ability: Effect Spore
EVs: 124 Atk / 132 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature (+Spe, -SpA)
- Spore
- Substitute
- Flash
- Brick Break
Breloom makes maximum use of Ludicolo's Thief (and possibly Icy Wind), as it Spore/Sub loops the opponent while reducing its Accuracy with Flash in order to let Jumpluff start its strategy. This is necessary if Ludicolo can't get Flashes off. It can also choose to sweep itself, if their team likely contains suitable Pokémon for that, and this is sometimes less risky than switching in Jumpluff on a potential wake-up. Letting Breloom get killed is also an option, but sometimes Jumpluff needs Breloom to win against, say, Leftovers Cradily or when it runs out of PP. Breloom is a surprisingly good switchin against the things that would deplete Jumpluff's PP a lot (also e.g. Anabel's Snorlax). Brick Break is pretty powerful even with 'leftover' Attack EV's, 2HKOing many Quick Claw Pokémon Ice-types and easily sweeping through sleeping opponents.
Breloom is EV'ed to survive Heracross' Megahorn and holds Salac Berry, so it outspeeds even the Lum Berry variants after deleting their berry with Spore, which allows Jumpluff to sweep safely if Breloom gets a Flash off.
All in all, I'm pretty confident with this team. The scariest threat I've seen until now is Quick Claw Slowking / Slowbro with Ice Beam as the second or third Pokémon. Jumpluff stays in vs them and tries to kill them as quickly as possible. If it gets hit by QC Ice Beam (remember it has 6 Double Teams as well), Breloom can still come in and Spore them while they are seeded, providing their QC doesn't immediately activate again.
In the Sample Streak, I used another Ludicolo set which has 116 Speed, enabling it to outspeed the 172 Speed tier after Icy Wind, but I realized it's way more important to survive Muk's Sludge Bomb / Dodrio's Drill Peck / et cetera. So the set presented here is BETTER than the one in the video. Somewhere today I'll replace the video with a new one.
EDIT: Realised Ludicolo is way bulkier on the Special side as a bonus, with 212 HP / 204 Def / 92 Spe, so I updated the moveset above.
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I haven't been able to play Gen 3 as much as I wanted to due to my irl obligations which involve my job, other activities and the fact that Sword/Shield takes pretty much the spare free time I have. However, I managed to get Deustche Wissenschaft around 546 wins. My goal is to hit 1000 wins and I'm here hoping I'll be able to reach that benchmark whenever I have the time to invest on it. Only made a few slight modifications on Registeel being max HP now and so far, the team is still as solid as I can expect it to be.
Long post inbound, as I update with two new record streaks in my two least favourite facilities.
Battle Arena
After a few attempts, I achieved a streak of 64 in the Battle Arena which, while by no means impressive, is still the highest anyone’s reported so I’m counting it as a positive. Hopefully it’ll spur others to get a longer streak!
My team was
Latias @ Lum Berry
Dragon Claw
Psychic
Thunderbolt
Calm Mind
252 SpA/Speed, 6 HP (Modest)
IVs: 24/x/22/27/30/31
Heracross @ Liechi Berry
Megahorn
Earthquake
Rock Slide
Brick Break
252 Att/Speed, 6 HP (Jolly)
IVs: 30/31/28/x/31/30
Aerodactyl @ Lansat Berry
Hyper Beam
Earthquake
Ancientpower
Aerial Ace
252 Att/Speed, 6 HP (Adamant)
IVs: 20/31/30/x/27/31
As I alluded to in earlier posts, I played around with a few ideas including lead Gengar with Destiny Bond, but wasn’t satisfied with how it was working out. The inability to switch is a real pain and I found it hard to get a sense of consistent momentum - too many setup sweepers are useless if they come up against something that can KO them before they boost. So I figured my lead had to be something most things couldn't easily KO and that could tear through teams quickly, with two fast sweepers in the back to mop up. Since I’d used Latios a lot in the Tower and Pyramid, I figured it was worth a shot, but it, too, didn’t seem to have the required staying power. So I switched to using Latias, which worked a little better. The other two are cleaners.
Brute force is definitely my preferred playstyle, and the Arena seems to be the place for it, but I’m still not entirely happy with how things went here. Playing through the Arena again reminded me that (when I went for the Gold ages ago) I ended up enjoying it a lot less than I thought I would. It’s definitely a tough nut to crack.
Battle Palace
Let’s be real, Battle Palace sucks. It’s the lamest of the seven facilities in g3 and I have no long-term interest in it because, outside of designing a decent team that maximises your chances, there’s no real strategy or skill involved; it’s just pressing A and hoping that your team do what you want. I dislike it so much that my initial streak of 42 was still in place when I went into the facility, because I’d gone in there precisely once to get the Gold Symbol and never returned. But in the interests of fairness, I wiped it and started from scratch (and opted for Open Level this time).
The best I can say about it is that only having to complete 6 passes to get the Gold Symbol is generous by the standards of the g3 Frontier; I think Game Freak may have reconsidered the difficulty level after Emerald since all of the facilities in later games (the Battle Hall in PtHGSS aside) require far fewer circuits to reach the final boss fights than the Tower, Dome, Pyramid, and Pike do.
Anyway, for my attempt here I decided to go with the tried-and-tested Water-Steel-Dragon trio, and picked Dragonite, Suicune, and Scizor.
Dragonite @ Choice Band
Double-Edge
Aerial Ace
Earthquake
Brick Break
252 Attack/Speed, 6 SD (Hasty)
IVs: 30/31/11/x/31/23
I've never actually used Dragonite in any of the battle facilities in g3 – as far as I’m concerned, its USP is Multiscale and Extremespeed. However, I wanted to mix things up and decided to breed for a decent one (maybe I’m just not using them right, but I find Flygon and Salamence very underwhelming). One of the first Dratini I bred was Hasty (I wanted Adamant, ofc) but it had pretty good IVs so I figured I’d keep it since Hasty's not a bad nature in the Palace.
Moves are pretty standard; Choice Band alleviates much of the uncertainty. I’m unclear on how well the AI knows type advantages (it often chooses the right move, but sometimes you do get stuff like Earthquake against a Crobat) but it's glorious when you get the right move on turn one and it happens to be effective against the other two opponents as well.
Suicune @ Leftovers
Surf
Calm Mind
Rest
Toxic
252 HP/Def, 6 SD (Modest)
IVs: 13/x/17/20/14/14
My old Suicune from Colosseum brought out of retirement to play Spenser at his own game. Its IVs aren't great, but they're just good enough to suffice. Suicune’s primary job is not to kill things (though it’s pretty decent at that); it’s there to soak up PP and sponge hits from stuff that can’t hurt it. There’s just so much that can’t really touch it that a lot of the time wins are pretty foregone, and Pressure means that it rarely gets into Struggle wars. Modest is a pretty average nature in the Palace, and Suicune tends to use all four moves in equal measure, so with a lot of battles it's just a matter of waiting for it to use the right one.
Scizor @ Lum Berry
Silver Wind
Steel Wing
Aerial Ace
Swords Dance
100 HP, 252 Attack, 20 Def, 6 SD, 132 Speed (Adamant)
IVs: 25/29/22/x/31/30
I’d like to try for a decent Morning Sun Scizor at some point (long story, at the moment my sister has custody of our Wii) but for now I’m making do with this one I used in a playthrough of FireRed some years ago which turned out to have pretty decent IVs. I considered Quick Attack over Swords Dance, as well as a Salac Berry, but the unreliability of the battling system means that there’s no guarantee she’d do the strategy right, and Lum Berry has more immediate utility. Aerial Ace was a necessity on both Scizor and Dragonite; Double Teamers are rife, and even a couple of wasted turns can make it very hard to hit them. I only had a couple of protracted battles (battle 40 was truly tedious: spent ages with Scizor only ever seeming to want to use Aerial Ace on the opposing Meganium 2 when its sub was up). EVs are a little random but the Speed gives it enough to outspeed anything with 100 Speed at level 50 (which is a pretty wide tier, though I’m playing at level 70) while also maximising her attack. The remainder is divvied up between the defences.
So, with my rambling about my team out of the way... the numbers. After several goes, I achieved a streak of 80! Fought Spenser again at 63 wins with his Gold team; Suicune wrecks all three of them.
If I was redoing this team from scratch I'd probably go with Aggron or Steelix instead. I got burned twice by Pokemon with OHKO moves; there’s more wasted turns here than in any other facility, and against something with Guillotine or Sheer Cold that’s just begging to have them smack me. The most offensive was a Gligar (of all things!) who got off three perfect-accuracy Guillotines in a row while my team were idling. Infuriating, especially as it was so early. Note also that I swapped Suicune and Scizor’s items in the third round as otherwise Spenser’s Crobat can (and did) wreck my whole team.
I actually had a lot of fun with this team and grew very attached to it. Considering taking it to the Tower (though very likely swapping out Scizor for Aggron and using a Dancing Dragonite instead). It worked a lot better than I hoped for; I didn't expect to get past more than 55 wins.
Thanks for reading!
Battle Arena
After a few attempts, I achieved a streak of 64 in the Battle Arena which, while by no means impressive, is still the highest anyone’s reported so I’m counting it as a positive. Hopefully it’ll spur others to get a longer streak!
My team was
Latias @ Lum Berry
Dragon Claw
Psychic
Thunderbolt
Calm Mind
252 SpA/Speed, 6 HP (Modest)
IVs: 24/x/22/27/30/31
Heracross @ Liechi Berry
Megahorn
Earthquake
Rock Slide
Brick Break
252 Att/Speed, 6 HP (Jolly)
IVs: 30/31/28/x/31/30
Aerodactyl @ Lansat Berry
Hyper Beam
Earthquake
Ancientpower
Aerial Ace
252 Att/Speed, 6 HP (Adamant)
IVs: 20/31/30/x/27/31
As I alluded to in earlier posts, I played around with a few ideas including lead Gengar with Destiny Bond, but wasn’t satisfied with how it was working out. The inability to switch is a real pain and I found it hard to get a sense of consistent momentum - too many setup sweepers are useless if they come up against something that can KO them before they boost. So I figured my lead had to be something most things couldn't easily KO and that could tear through teams quickly, with two fast sweepers in the back to mop up. Since I’d used Latios a lot in the Tower and Pyramid, I figured it was worth a shot, but it, too, didn’t seem to have the required staying power. So I switched to using Latias, which worked a little better. The other two are cleaners.
Brute force is definitely my preferred playstyle, and the Arena seems to be the place for it, but I’m still not entirely happy with how things went here. Playing through the Arena again reminded me that (when I went for the Gold ages ago) I ended up enjoying it a lot less than I thought I would. It’s definitely a tough nut to crack.
Battle Palace
Let’s be real, Battle Palace sucks. It’s the lamest of the seven facilities in g3 and I have no long-term interest in it because, outside of designing a decent team that maximises your chances, there’s no real strategy or skill involved; it’s just pressing A and hoping that your team do what you want. I dislike it so much that my initial streak of 42 was still in place when I went into the facility, because I’d gone in there precisely once to get the Gold Symbol and never returned. But in the interests of fairness, I wiped it and started from scratch (and opted for Open Level this time).
The best I can say about it is that only having to complete 6 passes to get the Gold Symbol is generous by the standards of the g3 Frontier; I think Game Freak may have reconsidered the difficulty level after Emerald since all of the facilities in later games (the Battle Hall in PtHGSS aside) require far fewer circuits to reach the final boss fights than the Tower, Dome, Pyramid, and Pike do.
Anyway, for my attempt here I decided to go with the tried-and-tested Water-Steel-Dragon trio, and picked Dragonite, Suicune, and Scizor.
Dragonite @ Choice Band
Double-Edge
Aerial Ace
Earthquake
Brick Break
252 Attack/Speed, 6 SD (Hasty)
IVs: 30/31/11/x/31/23
I've never actually used Dragonite in any of the battle facilities in g3 – as far as I’m concerned, its USP is Multiscale and Extremespeed. However, I wanted to mix things up and decided to breed for a decent one (maybe I’m just not using them right, but I find Flygon and Salamence very underwhelming). One of the first Dratini I bred was Hasty (I wanted Adamant, ofc) but it had pretty good IVs so I figured I’d keep it since Hasty's not a bad nature in the Palace.
Moves are pretty standard; Choice Band alleviates much of the uncertainty. I’m unclear on how well the AI knows type advantages (it often chooses the right move, but sometimes you do get stuff like Earthquake against a Crobat) but it's glorious when you get the right move on turn one and it happens to be effective against the other two opponents as well.
Suicune @ Leftovers
Surf
Calm Mind
Rest
Toxic
252 HP/Def, 6 SD (Modest)
IVs: 13/x/17/20/14/14
My old Suicune from Colosseum brought out of retirement to play Spenser at his own game. Its IVs aren't great, but they're just good enough to suffice. Suicune’s primary job is not to kill things (though it’s pretty decent at that); it’s there to soak up PP and sponge hits from stuff that can’t hurt it. There’s just so much that can’t really touch it that a lot of the time wins are pretty foregone, and Pressure means that it rarely gets into Struggle wars. Modest is a pretty average nature in the Palace, and Suicune tends to use all four moves in equal measure, so with a lot of battles it's just a matter of waiting for it to use the right one.
Scizor @ Lum Berry
Silver Wind
Steel Wing
Aerial Ace
Swords Dance
100 HP, 252 Attack, 20 Def, 6 SD, 132 Speed (Adamant)
IVs: 25/29/22/x/31/30
I’d like to try for a decent Morning Sun Scizor at some point (long story, at the moment my sister has custody of our Wii) but for now I’m making do with this one I used in a playthrough of FireRed some years ago which turned out to have pretty decent IVs. I considered Quick Attack over Swords Dance, as well as a Salac Berry, but the unreliability of the battling system means that there’s no guarantee she’d do the strategy right, and Lum Berry has more immediate utility. Aerial Ace was a necessity on both Scizor and Dragonite; Double Teamers are rife, and even a couple of wasted turns can make it very hard to hit them. I only had a couple of protracted battles (battle 40 was truly tedious: spent ages with Scizor only ever seeming to want to use Aerial Ace on the opposing Meganium 2 when its sub was up). EVs are a little random but the Speed gives it enough to outspeed anything with 100 Speed at level 50 (which is a pretty wide tier, though I’m playing at level 70) while also maximising her attack. The remainder is divvied up between the defences.
So, with my rambling about my team out of the way... the numbers. After several goes, I achieved a streak of 80! Fought Spenser again at 63 wins with his Gold team; Suicune wrecks all three of them.
If I was redoing this team from scratch I'd probably go with Aggron or Steelix instead. I got burned twice by Pokemon with OHKO moves; there’s more wasted turns here than in any other facility, and against something with Guillotine or Sheer Cold that’s just begging to have them smack me. The most offensive was a Gligar (of all things!) who got off three perfect-accuracy Guillotines in a row while my team were idling. Infuriating, especially as it was so early. Note also that I swapped Suicune and Scizor’s items in the third round as otherwise Spenser’s Crobat can (and did) wreck my whole team.
I actually had a lot of fun with this team and grew very attached to it. Considering taking it to the Tower (though very likely swapping out Scizor for Aggron and using a Dancing Dragonite instead). It worked a lot better than I hoped for; I didn't expect to get past more than 55 wins.
Thanks for reading!
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Number eleven: Mono Rock. While I have Water and Psychic left as "easy" ones, the other types (Ground, Poison, Flying and Fighting) will be very challenging. As announced before, Mono Rock is played at Open Level, because I want to use Tyranitar. This team went through many variations, and I think they're interesting enough to share.
Since Tyranitar is such a good Pokémon and Sand Stream probably would synergize well with most kind of Rock teams, I was looking to include it from the start. The very first idea, however, didn't include it in favor of using a sweeping Kabutops.
Attempt #1: Flail Kabutops
Starting with the idea of CGS again, I figured Pressure Aerodactyl would be a good second Pokémon because it can act like a Legendary Bird of sorts. I originally used Armaldo as a lead for the same reason it's on the Bug team, but I already used it there. Another idea would be Regirock, who learns Thunder Wave and has great bulk but importantly can't remove Quick Claws and needs to Counter Metagross, leaving the whole team vulnerable to what the second Pokémon turns out to be. I thought the faster Kabutops would be a better sweeper than Tyranitar in the third spot, because Aerodactyl can't guarantee the opponent being totally crippled, Kabutops has Swords Dance and Battle Armor, and has access to Flail. It can't OHKO everything though; in the end the setup seemed too shaky, Kabutops frequently got screwed by Quick Claws because it hasn't got a Substitute up with certainty and doesn't have enough power to sweep with only one Swords Dance, say.
Attempt #2: Sweepstalling Aerodactyl
I really wanted to use Pressure Aerodactyl in Sandstorm, because it seemed so fun with Protect, Substitute Toxic and Flamethrower and a Modest Nature; the last move pretty much takes care of everything that is immune to Toxic. Maybe squeeze in Taunt somewhere. So I lead with a "utility Tyranitar" (it had Rock Slide, Endure, Toxic, and Crunch with Salac iirc), and used a very bulky Toxic / Protect / Rest / Amnesia Relicanth as a third Pokémon since it's able to switch into Water-types. This team tried to take opponents down by residual damage, but eventually I realized stuff like Metagross is going to ruin me in a while. The team had like 2 streaks on average (of around 120 battles), which is below my standard. Aerodactyl has 4mss, since it would really like to have Evasion as well; having it Pressurestall AND "sweep" is too much to ask.
Attempt #3: Baton Pass Lunatone
In order to have a reliable Lunatone pass, it would be nice to have Hypnosis always hit. This can be accomplished by a lead Sweet Scent Shuckle, forcing me to play at Level 60 to make the best use of Sitrus Berry on it. After two Sweet Scents, Hypnosis has 99.6% of hitting, and Rock Tomb can be used against opponents Lunatone doesn't outspeed. Lunatone uses Hypnosis / Substitute / Baton Pass / M, where M is probably either Calm Mind, Cosmic Power or Double Team. Cosmic Power would best be directed to Tyranitar (otherwise play at Lv. 50), Calm Mind could be interesting with a Rain Dance Omastar sweeper, and Double Team is nice to give to Aerodactyl, although it misses Sand Stream then. There are other options, such as Curse Regirock, and a Scary Face Rhydon would be literally scary at +6 Evasion and with Substitute.
The big problem? Shuckle can't reliably get two/three moves off without Sitrus Berry, and this is necessary against too many opponents. So it's vulnerable to status, and while bulky, it's already vulnerable to critical hits in the first place. Furthermore, it can't remove Quick Claws and can't do anything against Metagross, which stomps this team.
That had me thinking to use Tyranitar / Shuckle / Lunatone, with Tyranitar "pre-solving problems" for Shuckle and Lunatone being the sweeper itself (Baton Pass slot is free then). With Calm Mind, either Future Sight or Ice Beam is interesting (note that Lunatone will be sweeping in Sandstorm). Cosmic Power would have to be used with Rollout, which is REALLY weak and still only about 4HKOs Steelix with the FIFTH roll, and Double Team leaves it worthless besides stalling. I tried some stuff, but couldn't make a decent team out of it because Shuckle is so necessary.
Attempt #4: A combination of 1 and 2 - this is the one
Maybe use Tyranitar as a sweeper AND Aerodactyl as a staller? Could that work without Armaldo? Yes, it works. But Tyranitar won't be out first to get Sand Stream going; the "stall-sweeping" Aerodactyl is there only as a backup, and the first Pokémon should clear the path for Aerodactyl to effectively stall the opponent out of PP, enabling Tyranitar to setup Dragon Dances as the ADV Pokémon tradition dictates.
As said before, Regirock would be what comes to mind first, but it lacks the ability to remove items or cripple aside from Thunder Wave and Mud-Slap (which is not bad actually). It does have Explosion and Counter, which could be useful. Still, a critical hit Surf would nail it. Wait, critical hits... Aren't there other Pokémon with Battle Armor / Shell Armor? Of course, the RBY fossils. Do they useful moves besides their known sets? Turns out they do, and the concept for the final team to be optimized was established.
Mono Rock
Omastar @ [No Item]
Ability: Shell Armor
EVs: 252 HP / 24 SpA / 56 SpD / 176 Spe
Bold Nature (+Def, -Atk)
IVs: 0 Atk
- Thief
- Surf
- Haze
- Protect
Omastar negates critical hits and has the required bulk to ensure thiefing away any Quick Claws, which is an absolute must for Aerodactyl to work. It easily survives Machamp's Cross Chop, Rhydon's EQ, etc. Surf is to 2HKO dangerous Sand-immune Curse users, such as Regirock, and it gets a 100% kill against even the HP invested Marowak after Thief (and Marowak can't even dream of KO'ing Omastar without Thick Club). Omastar sadly needs all those Speed EVs for this; it used to be able to survive Jolteon's Thunderbolt as well, but I realized Marowak is a serious threat otherwise. Haze prevents Pokémon that boost their Speed to be faster than Aerodactyl on the turn I get Aerodactyl in. After that, it doesn't matter because I'll "slow-sub" them, with or without Sand Stream activated depending on their type.
Finally, Protect is to steal as much PP as I can from fully-attacking-moveset Special threats. These are most importantly Lati@s, Starmie and Lapras, since they can have two or more moves that are super-effective on Aerodactyl (one of them being Surf, which needs to be outstalled before Tyranitar can get off Dragon Dances). The more PP I can steal with Protect Omastar, the less lucky I need to be with Aerodactyl's Sleep Talk.
Aerodactyl @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 208 HP / 84 Def / 160 SpD / 56 Spe
Timid Nature (+Spe, -Atk)
IVs: 0 Atk
- Protect
- Substitute
- Rest
- Sleep Talk
The most annoying Pokémon I've used in the Monotype challenge until now, I'll have to admit. This Pokémon is dedicated to PP stalling and ONLY that. Interestingly, Sleep Talk can choose both Protect and Substitute, and this works as long as the Original moves have at least one PP. So don't use the last Protect / Substitute while NOT asleep. Aerodactyl already stalls 32 PP's BEFORE using Rest, so together with a LITTLE Sleep Talk luck it's going to outstall offensive Starmie's Surf at least, for example, which has 50 PP's in total. It usually saved Psychic for last, since that's not super-effective. You can see why Protect Omastar pulls weight here. Aerodactyl lives a Surf, and the rest is put into Defense to better wall e.g. physical attacks from Pokémon that also have Earthquake but wait to waste the PP's, such as Aggron.
Aerodactyl usually doesn't faint before Tyranitar comes in, and I like to keep it at high health as well. Should Tyranitar get screwed by Brightpowder, for example, Aerodactyl can always beat a non-Sand-immune Pokémon by just stalling it do death.
Tyranitar @ Lum Berry
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 84 HP / 252 Atk / 172 Spe
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SpA)
IVs: 30 Def / 30 SpD / 30 Spe
- Dragon Dance
- Substitute
- Hidden Power [Rock]
- Earthquake
Classic, not too much to say here. We've seen this thing run rampage on the Trick team, but this one has different EVs since it doesn't need to keep its Substitute up against Choice Band Struggles; its Substitute already lives all non-CB Struggles without investment if I'm not mistaken. Instead, it has more Speed EVs because it can't always set up as many DDs as it wants to; sometimes one or two Struggle crits prevent it from doing that. I'd rather have a Substitute up than risking another crit for one more boost, because Tyranitar is scary as hell even at +2/+2 with a Substitute up, and I always have Aerodactyl left in a pinch (on the Trick team, Zapdos is dead weight after it passed).
The HP EVs help against Struggle damage, but most importantly make me survive two Thunderbolts from Jolteon, who outspeeds Aerodactyl. This is just a risk I have to take; Lum Berry helps and I'll be at +2/+2 without a Sub up.
I'm really glad I found a way to put Sand Stream into good use, and even if this is probably one of the more boring Monotypes until now, I'm still pretty proud of it. In the Sample Streak, we see a funny situation where Aerodactyl finishes a Dragonite who got through a fully setup Tyranitar with extreme Brightpowder hax, and we also see Aerodactyl pulling off some great Sleep Talk cycles against a Latios (whose non-super effective Attacks don't 2HKO it).
Thanks for reading again, I'll be into some of the obscure types now… I think the next one will be Poison (finally got somewhere after ditching 5 projects already). I'm going to save the more potent types (Psychic and Water) for moments I don't have so much patience, time or inspiration. Btw, I really love doing this -- it's making me appreciate Pokémon on a whole new level. Your remarks here, views on YT and general interest are worth a lot to me!
Since Tyranitar is such a good Pokémon and Sand Stream probably would synergize well with most kind of Rock teams, I was looking to include it from the start. The very first idea, however, didn't include it in favor of using a sweeping Kabutops.
Attempt #1: Flail Kabutops
Starting with the idea of CGS again, I figured Pressure Aerodactyl would be a good second Pokémon because it can act like a Legendary Bird of sorts. I originally used Armaldo as a lead for the same reason it's on the Bug team, but I already used it there. Another idea would be Regirock, who learns Thunder Wave and has great bulk but importantly can't remove Quick Claws and needs to Counter Metagross, leaving the whole team vulnerable to what the second Pokémon turns out to be. I thought the faster Kabutops would be a better sweeper than Tyranitar in the third spot, because Aerodactyl can't guarantee the opponent being totally crippled, Kabutops has Swords Dance and Battle Armor, and has access to Flail. It can't OHKO everything though; in the end the setup seemed too shaky, Kabutops frequently got screwed by Quick Claws because it hasn't got a Substitute up with certainty and doesn't have enough power to sweep with only one Swords Dance, say.
Attempt #2: Sweepstalling Aerodactyl
I really wanted to use Pressure Aerodactyl in Sandstorm, because it seemed so fun with Protect, Substitute Toxic and Flamethrower and a Modest Nature; the last move pretty much takes care of everything that is immune to Toxic. Maybe squeeze in Taunt somewhere. So I lead with a "utility Tyranitar" (it had Rock Slide, Endure, Toxic, and Crunch with Salac iirc), and used a very bulky Toxic / Protect / Rest / Amnesia Relicanth as a third Pokémon since it's able to switch into Water-types. This team tried to take opponents down by residual damage, but eventually I realized stuff like Metagross is going to ruin me in a while. The team had like 2 streaks on average (of around 120 battles), which is below my standard. Aerodactyl has 4mss, since it would really like to have Evasion as well; having it Pressurestall AND "sweep" is too much to ask.
Attempt #3: Baton Pass Lunatone
In order to have a reliable Lunatone pass, it would be nice to have Hypnosis always hit. This can be accomplished by a lead Sweet Scent Shuckle, forcing me to play at Level 60 to make the best use of Sitrus Berry on it. After two Sweet Scents, Hypnosis has 99.6% of hitting, and Rock Tomb can be used against opponents Lunatone doesn't outspeed. Lunatone uses Hypnosis / Substitute / Baton Pass / M, where M is probably either Calm Mind, Cosmic Power or Double Team. Cosmic Power would best be directed to Tyranitar (otherwise play at Lv. 50), Calm Mind could be interesting with a Rain Dance Omastar sweeper, and Double Team is nice to give to Aerodactyl, although it misses Sand Stream then. There are other options, such as Curse Regirock, and a Scary Face Rhydon would be literally scary at +6 Evasion and with Substitute.
The big problem? Shuckle can't reliably get two/three moves off without Sitrus Berry, and this is necessary against too many opponents. So it's vulnerable to status, and while bulky, it's already vulnerable to critical hits in the first place. Furthermore, it can't remove Quick Claws and can't do anything against Metagross, which stomps this team.
That had me thinking to use Tyranitar / Shuckle / Lunatone, with Tyranitar "pre-solving problems" for Shuckle and Lunatone being the sweeper itself (Baton Pass slot is free then). With Calm Mind, either Future Sight or Ice Beam is interesting (note that Lunatone will be sweeping in Sandstorm). Cosmic Power would have to be used with Rollout, which is REALLY weak and still only about 4HKOs Steelix with the FIFTH roll, and Double Team leaves it worthless besides stalling. I tried some stuff, but couldn't make a decent team out of it because Shuckle is so necessary.
Attempt #4: A combination of 1 and 2 - this is the one
Maybe use Tyranitar as a sweeper AND Aerodactyl as a staller? Could that work without Armaldo? Yes, it works. But Tyranitar won't be out first to get Sand Stream going; the "stall-sweeping" Aerodactyl is there only as a backup, and the first Pokémon should clear the path for Aerodactyl to effectively stall the opponent out of PP, enabling Tyranitar to setup Dragon Dances as the ADV Pokémon tradition dictates.
As said before, Regirock would be what comes to mind first, but it lacks the ability to remove items or cripple aside from Thunder Wave and Mud-Slap (which is not bad actually). It does have Explosion and Counter, which could be useful. Still, a critical hit Surf would nail it. Wait, critical hits... Aren't there other Pokémon with Battle Armor / Shell Armor? Of course, the RBY fossils. Do they useful moves besides their known sets? Turns out they do, and the concept for the final team to be optimized was established.
Mono Rock
Omastar @ [No Item]
Ability: Shell Armor
EVs: 252 HP / 24 SpA / 56 SpD / 176 Spe
Bold Nature (+Def, -Atk)
IVs: 0 Atk
- Thief
- Surf
- Haze
- Protect
Omastar negates critical hits and has the required bulk to ensure thiefing away any Quick Claws, which is an absolute must for Aerodactyl to work. It easily survives Machamp's Cross Chop, Rhydon's EQ, etc. Surf is to 2HKO dangerous Sand-immune Curse users, such as Regirock, and it gets a 100% kill against even the HP invested Marowak after Thief (and Marowak can't even dream of KO'ing Omastar without Thick Club). Omastar sadly needs all those Speed EVs for this; it used to be able to survive Jolteon's Thunderbolt as well, but I realized Marowak is a serious threat otherwise. Haze prevents Pokémon that boost their Speed to be faster than Aerodactyl on the turn I get Aerodactyl in. After that, it doesn't matter because I'll "slow-sub" them, with or without Sand Stream activated depending on their type.
Finally, Protect is to steal as much PP as I can from fully-attacking-moveset Special threats. These are most importantly Lati@s, Starmie and Lapras, since they can have two or more moves that are super-effective on Aerodactyl (one of them being Surf, which needs to be outstalled before Tyranitar can get off Dragon Dances). The more PP I can steal with Protect Omastar, the less lucky I need to be with Aerodactyl's Sleep Talk.
Aerodactyl @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 208 HP / 84 Def / 160 SpD / 56 Spe
Timid Nature (+Spe, -Atk)
IVs: 0 Atk
- Protect
- Substitute
- Rest
- Sleep Talk
The most annoying Pokémon I've used in the Monotype challenge until now, I'll have to admit. This Pokémon is dedicated to PP stalling and ONLY that. Interestingly, Sleep Talk can choose both Protect and Substitute, and this works as long as the Original moves have at least one PP. So don't use the last Protect / Substitute while NOT asleep. Aerodactyl already stalls 32 PP's BEFORE using Rest, so together with a LITTLE Sleep Talk luck it's going to outstall offensive Starmie's Surf at least, for example, which has 50 PP's in total. It usually saved Psychic for last, since that's not super-effective. You can see why Protect Omastar pulls weight here. Aerodactyl lives a Surf, and the rest is put into Defense to better wall e.g. physical attacks from Pokémon that also have Earthquake but wait to waste the PP's, such as Aggron.
Aerodactyl usually doesn't faint before Tyranitar comes in, and I like to keep it at high health as well. Should Tyranitar get screwed by Brightpowder, for example, Aerodactyl can always beat a non-Sand-immune Pokémon by just stalling it do death.
Tyranitar @ Lum Berry
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 84 HP / 252 Atk / 172 Spe
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SpA)
IVs: 30 Def / 30 SpD / 30 Spe
- Dragon Dance
- Substitute
- Hidden Power [Rock]
- Earthquake
Classic, not too much to say here. We've seen this thing run rampage on the Trick team, but this one has different EVs since it doesn't need to keep its Substitute up against Choice Band Struggles; its Substitute already lives all non-CB Struggles without investment if I'm not mistaken. Instead, it has more Speed EVs because it can't always set up as many DDs as it wants to; sometimes one or two Struggle crits prevent it from doing that. I'd rather have a Substitute up than risking another crit for one more boost, because Tyranitar is scary as hell even at +2/+2 with a Substitute up, and I always have Aerodactyl left in a pinch (on the Trick team, Zapdos is dead weight after it passed).
The HP EVs help against Struggle damage, but most importantly make me survive two Thunderbolts from Jolteon, who outspeeds Aerodactyl. This is just a risk I have to take; Lum Berry helps and I'll be at +2/+2 without a Sub up.
I'm really glad I found a way to put Sand Stream into good use, and even if this is probably one of the more boring Monotypes until now, I'm still pretty proud of it. In the Sample Streak, we see a funny situation where Aerodactyl finishes a Dragonite who got through a fully setup Tyranitar with extreme Brightpowder hax, and we also see Aerodactyl pulling off some great Sleep Talk cycles against a Latios (whose non-super effective Attacks don't 2HKO it).
Thanks for reading again, I'll be into some of the obscure types now… I think the next one will be Poison (finally got somewhere after ditching 5 projects already). I'm going to save the more potent types (Psychic and Water) for moments I don't have so much patience, time or inspiration. Btw, I really love doing this -- it's making me appreciate Pokémon on a whole new level. Your remarks here, views on YT and general interest are worth a lot to me!
I gotta say, I'm really loving how you're putting so many obscure and generally unappreciated Pokemon (Omastar, Masquerain, et al) to use. I tend to enjoy using those sorts of Pokemon on in-game runs, so it's great seeing them shine in top-level play. Would have been amazing if you'd been able to fit Kabutops in and do a Gen I Fossil-themed team though! But Tyranitar is a long-standing fave and deservedly has a place here too.
Rock is funny; it's odd that the games hype it as being so defensively strong when it's a much better offensive type. But there aren't really many great Rock-type sweepers, or at least none who can sweep without boosting. I have a couple of predictions, but I'm interested to see what you use for Ground...
Thanks! Using those obscure Pokémon makes it really fun to construct these teams. But I don't use them just to use them if there's a better option availabe, e.g. on the Fire-type team the basestat average is insane. In the end, I want to perform a 17 * 7 = 119 run with them!
An RBY fossil team is pretty viable; replacing Tyranitar with Kabutops doesn't make it bad at all. Especially because Struggle will not be able to crit, but of course Kabutops has other issues.
The Arena was a good read as well! Just wondered why Heracross doesn't have Salac and Aerodactyl Liechi.
To be honest the items were mostly redundant. Jolly Heracross is fast enough to outspeed most of the Frontier unboosted and as I wasn't EndRevving Liechi seemed more useful. Lansat on Aerodactyl was a pretty arbitrary choice, but the other pinch berries are useless on it and Choice Band was a definite no-no. Scope Lens and Brightpowder are both too luck-based for me. Sadly, I can probably count on half a hand the amount of times the berries activated.
Back again after much thinking and testing, to break my Poison-type promise in favor of a Mono Water team (number twelve). Poison and Ground are HARD, and I keep changing strategies, not being able to find a team yet that stands out above the others I've tried. On the side, I've began experimenting with the Fighting-type as well. This might be one of the only teams that leans more towards direct offense, we might even see a non-Trick Choice Band somewhere...
I "saved" mono Water because I thought it would be very easy to make a team that wins a streak with decent chance. There's lots of bulk to be found, balanced stats in general, boosting sweepers (Swords Dance Kabutops/Kingler/Qwilfish/Tentacruel, Curse Quagsire/Swampert, and the star of course, CMCune), Thief / Icy Wind is well-spread to reduce hax from happening, and there's even a Pokémon absorbing Electric-type attacks to cover that weakness. Grass-type offense isn't really dangerous, aside from Leaf Blade / Thunderpunch Sceptile maybe, but it hasn't got the attacking power to get through Tentacruel fast enough, for example.
My initial idea was to have two tried-and-true sweepers in the form of Suicune and Swampert, the latter being able to setup on Electric-types with impunity. Suicune's Substitutes are so bulky they actually don't break (all of the time) against STAB Stuff like Nidoking's Sludge Bomb or other powerful assaults such as Metagross' EQ. To cripple up the lead in order for either setup to be easier, Thunder Wave Starmie came to mind first, so that was the first attempt.
Attempt #1: Starmie + bulky setup sweepers
While Starmie gets Thunder Wave and can either be an offensive backup later or use , Confuse Ray, Recover and something like Flash or Ice Beam (to take care of Mence before it sets up; could even be dangerous when paralyzed or when I miss Thunder Wave and it crits after), can switch out with Natural Cure and its Speed really helps, the lack of Thief, weakness to QC Shadow Balls and poor bulk in general can bite. For example, Metagross can QC KO, then QC Explosion on the next Pokémon.
Also, it's hard to setup vs stuff like Gardevoir (Calm Mind Thunderbolts / Magical Leaf / Psychic hits like a truck) or Lati@s, and they might carry a Lum Berry to take care of Starmie (although Starmie can be EV'ed to live those). Using Substitute/Rest/CM/Surf Suicune doesn't let it beat some Pokémon still, like Lati@s who also set up (especially Anabel's Latios is dangerous). Swampert's Special bulk leaves much to be desired, and if it uses Leftovers the Restloop will get broken easily by a Critical Hit (often on the Special side). I needed a more dedicated Special wall, preferably one that can switch into Electric types, and one that also handles OHKO-abusing (QC) bulky waters a bit better.
Attempt #2: Tentacruel/Politoed, Suicune and Lanturn
So Starmie got traded for a "Burglar" to remove Quick Claws, and Lanturn became the go-to switch for Electrics. Its decent Special bulk, along with Amnesia or Protect and Leftovers, lets it fight the aforementioned stuff a lot better. Mine ran Tbolt / Protect / Toxic / Thunder Wave, but Amnesia is pretty good as well. Toxic lets it win against Lati@s and is useful against bulky waters as well, such as Vaporeon and Milotic, to prevent wasting Surf PP (against the latter) after setting up. It forces Resting opponent to go to sleep, after which Suicune can setup effectively or start a good PP stalling situation with Substitute. As an extra, it OHKOs Gyarados and can switch into it; with a Modest set of 60 HP / 196 Def / 116 SpA / 116 Spe it outspeeds Gyara if it doesn't DD (but uses EQ) on the switch, and it lives a +1 EQ.
Since both Tentacruel and Politoed like to run 113 Speed because of Metagross (the non-Jolly ones) and make optimal use of Icy Wind, only Tentacruel remains viable if we want to avoid being 2HKOed by Sceptile. Tentacruel is less bulky than Politoed, however (not by that much), and Politoed gets the very useful Perish Song, e.g. to use against CurseLax (again, Anabel would be a problem without it unless I could setup Suicune somehow before Lax gets in. This is more tedious than it might sound, which is shown as a bonus in the Sample Streak). Moreover, Politoed gets Damp, which seems to reduce the likelihood for the opponent to use Explosion on the turn I switch in Suicune (if I preserve Politoed in the first place).
The team still has great trouble against opposing Calm Minders that outrun Suicune if they crit through Lanturn or simply get through it without hax. Using Perish Song costs Politoed a lot of health usually, and it can only be done one or two times in a match. While I had a strategy to beat Anabel, I wasn't completely satisfied yet.
Final idea: forget about having to sweep with Suicune; instead let Suicune be a PP staller, just like most of the other legendary Pokémon in this challenge, or Pressure Pokémon in general. A bulkier Politoed maybe, PP Stall Cune and still Swampert to setup? Yes sir, I think it doesn't get much better.
Mono Water
Politoed @ [No Item]
Ability: Damp
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Calm Nature (+SpD, -Atk)
- Thief
- Icy Wind
- Perish Song
- Mud-Slap
Since Politoed doesn't really need to outspeed anything anymore after Icy Wind, it can now fully focus on Special bulk. It survives critical hit Leaf Blade from Sceptile, and isn't OHKOed by anything physical without a critical hit. It uses Perish Song against Pokémon that could become dangerous while setting up, such as DDMence or Baton Pass Scizor, so it's useful as the other Pokémon don't pseudohaze. As a bonus, it checks last Pokémon should I run out of PP or something but I don't save Politoed just for that reason if it's more convenient to get in Suicune safely (e.g. when the opponent's move might cause a status affection like Flamethrower). Mud-Slap is a filler option, but a very useful one. Even one Evasion drop can snowball against Suicune, either letting it sweep with much more HP left or stall out many more moves before setting up itself / Swampert.
Suicune @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 140 HP / 220 Def / 4 SpA / 4 SpD / 140 Spe
Bold Nature (+Def, -Atk)
- Protect
- Substitute
- Calm Mind
- Surf
Probably the star of ADV in general, alongside Tyranitar. I use only 140 HP EVs to have a perfect Leftovers number (too bad it doesn't get to 209 HP), 140 Speed to outrun the fastest Metagross in the Tower (lost Suicune to its outspeeding Explosion before, although Swampert and Politoed won the match), 220 Def is mainly "the rest" and makes Suicune's Sub stay up against most physical attacks up to around the power of Dodrio's Facade / Metagross' EQ with at least 60% chance. "Expectation" is a meaningful reasoning here, because I'll get to use Sub at least five times.
Suicune outstalls their most powerful move against it, then usually has around half HP left. Then its Substitutes start not breaking and its sets up itself, winning the match if nothing like Water Absorb / Ludicolo / hax happens. If Water Absorb Pokémon come in as last Pokémon, I can Perish Song. Against Ludicolo I usually stay around for a bit to scout its set, try to break through with Surf if it hasn't used DT much (its Rain Dance makes me 3/4HKO it) or stall longer if necessary before switching into Politoed / Swampert. Same story with Lapras, I won't switch out until I'm sure it can't OHKO the other Pokémon. If absolutely necessary, Suicune can win a Struggle war with these opponents if they don't have Double Team + Leftovers.
Swampert @ Chesto Berry
Ability: Torrent
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 SpD
Careful Nature (+SpD, -SpA)
IVs: 30 Def / 30 SpD / 30 Spe
- Curse
- Earthquake
- Hidden Power [Rock] / Hidden Power [Flying]
- Rest
The Electric-lead counter. Usually it's not even needed, because after Icy Wind Suicune outspeeds non-Timid-Jolteon Electric-types anyway. Simple premise, this is a pretty standard Swampert. It doesn't need Defense because if it sets up it's either against Electric-types (biggest physical threat is Drill Peck Zapdos / Cross Chop Electabuzz, who can't beat me even without Defense EVs) or Struggling opponents. Hidden Power [Rock] 2HKOs the Latis and OHKOs most Pokémon EQ has no effect on. Another option is HP[Flying], but I like to OHKO Birds sooner than fully setup. Haven't really experimented with other coverage moves; HP[Rock] is a golden standard.
Swampert easily lives a non-crit Giga Drain from Gengar, as well as other Grass-type assaults such as Vileplume's / Victreebel's Giga Drain. Solarbeam can be a problem, because Swampert doesn't OHKO all of its users. Would have to try HP[Flying] I guess, but tbh I've never been in a situation yet where Suicune doesn't live anymore.
So yeah, that's mono Water! As usual, I'm interested in your feedback. A sample streak has been uploaded, although HP[Flying] over HP[Rock] is definitely worth playing with before I make the all-mono challenge attempt.
I "saved" mono Water because I thought it would be very easy to make a team that wins a streak with decent chance. There's lots of bulk to be found, balanced stats in general, boosting sweepers (Swords Dance Kabutops/Kingler/Qwilfish/Tentacruel, Curse Quagsire/Swampert, and the star of course, CMCune), Thief / Icy Wind is well-spread to reduce hax from happening, and there's even a Pokémon absorbing Electric-type attacks to cover that weakness. Grass-type offense isn't really dangerous, aside from Leaf Blade / Thunderpunch Sceptile maybe, but it hasn't got the attacking power to get through Tentacruel fast enough, for example.
My initial idea was to have two tried-and-true sweepers in the form of Suicune and Swampert, the latter being able to setup on Electric-types with impunity. Suicune's Substitutes are so bulky they actually don't break (all of the time) against STAB Stuff like Nidoking's Sludge Bomb or other powerful assaults such as Metagross' EQ. To cripple up the lead in order for either setup to be easier, Thunder Wave Starmie came to mind first, so that was the first attempt.
Attempt #1: Starmie + bulky setup sweepers
While Starmie gets Thunder Wave and can either be an offensive backup later or use , Confuse Ray, Recover and something like Flash or Ice Beam (to take care of Mence before it sets up; could even be dangerous when paralyzed or when I miss Thunder Wave and it crits after), can switch out with Natural Cure and its Speed really helps, the lack of Thief, weakness to QC Shadow Balls and poor bulk in general can bite. For example, Metagross can QC KO, then QC Explosion on the next Pokémon.
Also, it's hard to setup vs stuff like Gardevoir (Calm Mind Thunderbolts / Magical Leaf / Psychic hits like a truck) or Lati@s, and they might carry a Lum Berry to take care of Starmie (although Starmie can be EV'ed to live those). Using Substitute/Rest/CM/Surf Suicune doesn't let it beat some Pokémon still, like Lati@s who also set up (especially Anabel's Latios is dangerous). Swampert's Special bulk leaves much to be desired, and if it uses Leftovers the Restloop will get broken easily by a Critical Hit (often on the Special side). I needed a more dedicated Special wall, preferably one that can switch into Electric types, and one that also handles OHKO-abusing (QC) bulky waters a bit better.
Attempt #2: Tentacruel/Politoed, Suicune and Lanturn
So Starmie got traded for a "Burglar" to remove Quick Claws, and Lanturn became the go-to switch for Electrics. Its decent Special bulk, along with Amnesia or Protect and Leftovers, lets it fight the aforementioned stuff a lot better. Mine ran Tbolt / Protect / Toxic / Thunder Wave, but Amnesia is pretty good as well. Toxic lets it win against Lati@s and is useful against bulky waters as well, such as Vaporeon and Milotic, to prevent wasting Surf PP (against the latter) after setting up. It forces Resting opponent to go to sleep, after which Suicune can setup effectively or start a good PP stalling situation with Substitute. As an extra, it OHKOs Gyarados and can switch into it; with a Modest set of 60 HP / 196 Def / 116 SpA / 116 Spe it outspeeds Gyara if it doesn't DD (but uses EQ) on the switch, and it lives a +1 EQ.
Since both Tentacruel and Politoed like to run 113 Speed because of Metagross (the non-Jolly ones) and make optimal use of Icy Wind, only Tentacruel remains viable if we want to avoid being 2HKOed by Sceptile. Tentacruel is less bulky than Politoed, however (not by that much), and Politoed gets the very useful Perish Song, e.g. to use against CurseLax (again, Anabel would be a problem without it unless I could setup Suicune somehow before Lax gets in. This is more tedious than it might sound, which is shown as a bonus in the Sample Streak). Moreover, Politoed gets Damp, which seems to reduce the likelihood for the opponent to use Explosion on the turn I switch in Suicune (if I preserve Politoed in the first place).
The team still has great trouble against opposing Calm Minders that outrun Suicune if they crit through Lanturn or simply get through it without hax. Using Perish Song costs Politoed a lot of health usually, and it can only be done one or two times in a match. While I had a strategy to beat Anabel, I wasn't completely satisfied yet.
Final idea: forget about having to sweep with Suicune; instead let Suicune be a PP staller, just like most of the other legendary Pokémon in this challenge, or Pressure Pokémon in general. A bulkier Politoed maybe, PP Stall Cune and still Swampert to setup? Yes sir, I think it doesn't get much better.
Mono Water
Politoed @ [No Item]
Ability: Damp
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Calm Nature (+SpD, -Atk)
- Thief
- Icy Wind
- Perish Song
- Mud-Slap
Since Politoed doesn't really need to outspeed anything anymore after Icy Wind, it can now fully focus on Special bulk. It survives critical hit Leaf Blade from Sceptile, and isn't OHKOed by anything physical without a critical hit. It uses Perish Song against Pokémon that could become dangerous while setting up, such as DDMence or Baton Pass Scizor, so it's useful as the other Pokémon don't pseudohaze. As a bonus, it checks last Pokémon should I run out of PP or something but I don't save Politoed just for that reason if it's more convenient to get in Suicune safely (e.g. when the opponent's move might cause a status affection like Flamethrower). Mud-Slap is a filler option, but a very useful one. Even one Evasion drop can snowball against Suicune, either letting it sweep with much more HP left or stall out many more moves before setting up itself / Swampert.
Suicune @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 140 HP / 220 Def / 4 SpA / 4 SpD / 140 Spe
Bold Nature (+Def, -Atk)
- Protect
- Substitute
- Calm Mind
- Surf
Probably the star of ADV in general, alongside Tyranitar. I use only 140 HP EVs to have a perfect Leftovers number (too bad it doesn't get to 209 HP), 140 Speed to outrun the fastest Metagross in the Tower (lost Suicune to its outspeeding Explosion before, although Swampert and Politoed won the match), 220 Def is mainly "the rest" and makes Suicune's Sub stay up against most physical attacks up to around the power of Dodrio's Facade / Metagross' EQ with at least 60% chance. "Expectation" is a meaningful reasoning here, because I'll get to use Sub at least five times.
Suicune outstalls their most powerful move against it, then usually has around half HP left. Then its Substitutes start not breaking and its sets up itself, winning the match if nothing like Water Absorb / Ludicolo / hax happens. If Water Absorb Pokémon come in as last Pokémon, I can Perish Song. Against Ludicolo I usually stay around for a bit to scout its set, try to break through with Surf if it hasn't used DT much (its Rain Dance makes me 3/4HKO it) or stall longer if necessary before switching into Politoed / Swampert. Same story with Lapras, I won't switch out until I'm sure it can't OHKO the other Pokémon. If absolutely necessary, Suicune can win a Struggle war with these opponents if they don't have Double Team + Leftovers.
Swampert @ Chesto Berry
Ability: Torrent
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 SpD
Careful Nature (+SpD, -SpA)
IVs: 30 Def / 30 SpD / 30 Spe
- Curse
- Earthquake
- Hidden Power [Rock] / Hidden Power [Flying]
- Rest
The Electric-lead counter. Usually it's not even needed, because after Icy Wind Suicune outspeeds non-Timid-Jolteon Electric-types anyway. Simple premise, this is a pretty standard Swampert. It doesn't need Defense because if it sets up it's either against Electric-types (biggest physical threat is Drill Peck Zapdos / Cross Chop Electabuzz, who can't beat me even without Defense EVs) or Struggling opponents. Hidden Power [Rock] 2HKOs the Latis and OHKOs most Pokémon EQ has no effect on. Another option is HP[Flying], but I like to OHKO Birds sooner than fully setup. Haven't really experimented with other coverage moves; HP[Rock] is a golden standard.
Swampert easily lives a non-crit Giga Drain from Gengar, as well as other Grass-type assaults such as Vileplume's / Victreebel's Giga Drain. Solarbeam can be a problem, because Swampert doesn't OHKO all of its users. Would have to try HP[Flying] I guess, but tbh I've never been in a situation yet where Suicune doesn't live anymore.
So yeah, that's mono Water! As usual, I'm interested in your feedback. A sample streak has been uploaded, although HP[Flying] over HP[Rock] is definitely worth playing with before I make the all-mono challenge attempt.
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Politoed! Another longstanding fave. I guess Suicune was inevitable, but interesting to see Swampert used as the ace, did not expect that.
I've been thinking about which facility to take on next (Battle Tower Singles is on hold for now) and was thinking of possibly tackling Palace or Factory Doubles since no-one's attempted those as far as I'm aware. Why do they only let you use three Pokemon, though? Tower Doubles allows four, as do all the facilities in g4's Frontier. Curious...
Is Golden Blissey still active on here, btw? Just noticed the leaderboards haven't been updated in a while... yes, I just want my streaks up there.
Been a while since I’ve replied here, just been working on RNGing a truckload of pokemon and getting a few passes. I finally got my gold factory pass so I’m off for the races in the rest of the frontier
My question is, has anyone given baton pass chains any sort of real try in the tower? I was thinking about trying to run Lunatone or Solrock with Baton Pass + Cosmic Power to pass to Cradily, a soundproof mon, or maybe Ingrain. Essentially, set up a situation where I can’t be crit, status’ed, perish song’d, or roared out (because Haze isn’t seen in the later rounds either). I’ll work on brainstorming a team later, but I just wanted some ideas!
My question is, has anyone given baton pass chains any sort of real try in the tower? I was thinking about trying to run Lunatone or Solrock with Baton Pass + Cosmic Power to pass to Cradily, a soundproof mon, or maybe Ingrain. Essentially, set up a situation where I can’t be crit, status’ed, perish song’d, or roared out (because Haze isn’t seen in the later rounds either). I’ll work on brainstorming a team later, but I just wanted some ideas!
It's finally time to show you the mono Poison team I ended up with. The Poison-type took the most time to construct so far because it sucks, to put it bluntly. Although I've spent much time on the Normal-type team as well, that search was definitely more enjoyable and creative.
Needless to say, this team might be the most independable until now, so I'll probably to start the 119-streak challenge with it. It's still not bad, however, and in hindsight I've used some pretty weird, funny setups I'd like to share before revealing the final team.
As usual, I started looking at Pokémon that are capable of sweeping the opponent's team, worrying about the possibilities to set them up later. That's where it got difficult already; there's no good ways of increasing Speed and the faster Poison-types don't get decent setup moves. The closest we can get, not considering Curse since I don't prefer sweeping slow without Shell Armor, is Growth/Swords Dance Vileplume / Venusaur / Victreebel. Since Sunny Day occupies a much-needed moveslot, I figure Venusaur had the best Special sweeping capabilities, and has to make do with a set like
Venusaur @ Salac Berry ** LETITGROW
Ability: Overgrow
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 68 SpD / 84 Spe
Modest Nature (+SpA, -Atk)
IVs: 30 Atk / 30 Def
- Growth
- Magical Leaf
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Substitute
Decent Speed tier, enough SpA to enable sweeping with Overgrow (it OHKOs Metagross with around 80% chance iirc), but Grass has bad coverage and HP[Ice] doesn't OHKO all resisters, like Articuno. Giga Drain is an option, but I like to stay in Salac range, especially because it's sometimes hard to get back against slower, QC opponents. Its Poison typing makes it frail to setup though, as with nearly all the other Poison-types.
Other ideas? Well, actually Beedrill can pack quite a punch in the right circumstances (Evasion, +6 Atk in Swarm range):
Beedrill @ Salac Berry ** VIRIDIAN
Ability: Swarm
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SpA)
IVs: 30 SpD / 30 Spe
- Swords Dance
- Substitute
- Hidden Power [Bug]
- Endeavor
This one can Endeavor the Pokémon it can't get through (no matter what two attacking moves you pick, you'll always be walled somehow), and coupled with a good finisher (might be a Pokémon used in the setup too) it seems pretty decent. On paper, it looks better than the Venusaur at least (but it isn't).
Another Swords Dancer is Victreebel, but it has an even worse coverage problem than Beedrill. Playing around with Morning Sun got me nowhere either. Same story with Tentacruel, who hasn't got enough power to begin with. I can't get the right support for subseeding too, it seems. Besides, using that strategy on Mono Grass is enough IMO.
Before I continue with the team structures I considered, here's another set I thought would be amazing when fully setup with Evasion passed to it:
Gengar @ Leftovers
- Curse
- Hypnosis
- Substitute
- Dream Eater
This Gengar is extremely deadly when passed +6 Evasion and a Petaya boost, because it has the luxury of not having to waste a moveslot on Double Team. With Double Team, you end up with a set that reminds of the Ghost-team Dusclops, but as Gengar lacks Pain Split, you'll find yourself praying on misses / hitting Hypnosis too much in order to recover enough health with Leftovers.
You can use 0 HP IVs too to increase the HP percentage healed with Dream Eater, but in my experience it's more important to survive an occasional hit. You can even make it bulky enough to survive Metagross' MM, for example. I used it on a Venomoth team, so a more detailed set accustomed to that team is below.
That's pretty much it, if you want to "sweep" with some Speed. Liking the idea of that last Gengar, I came up with the following:
Venusaur @ Salac Berry
Ability: Overgrow
EVs: 252 HP / 12 Def / 4 SpA / 148 SpD / 92 Spe
Calm Nature (+SpD, -Atk)
- Sweet Scent
- Sleep Powder
- Roar
- Giga Drain / Protect
This Venusaur tanks non-Overheat Fire-type assaults and lives the strongest unboosted Psychics in the game. It uses Sweet Scent and gets into Salac range against these threats, enabling it to remove Lum/Chesto Berries with a 99.75%-accurate Sleep Powder. It Roars away Clear Body Pokémon (after potentially sleeping them, helping Gengar later as well), and Protect is to scout their move. Giga Drain owns (offensive and defensive) Starmie, because Overgrow Giga Drain + Normal Giga Drain KO's and Salac makes me faster. This is necessary because Venomoth can't outspeed Starmie and it might have Lum Berry as well. Giga Drain can be switched to Protect to scout and make use of Gengar's Curse later.
Too bad Venusaur doesn't learn Thief; that would probably make this team an actual contender.
Venomoth @ Petaya Berry
Ability: Shield Dust
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature (+Spe, -Atk)
- Sleep Powder
- Substitute
- Double Team
- Baton Pass
After Sweet Scent, this sets up at least 4 Double Teams almost surely before passing them to Gengar, together with a Petaya Boost. The Special Defense is to survive some Psychics better. By the way, this is the only viable Poison-type Baton Passer (Ariados is terrible).
Gengar @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature (+Spe, -Atk)
- Curse
- Hypnosis
- Substitute
- Dream Eater
After Petaya Berry, this Gengar has a 'STAB' Dream Eater to work with. Hypnosis hits with around 80% accuracy after one Sweet Scent (and 99.6% or more after more Sweet Scents). It recovers HP pretty fast that way, which is why full SpA is used over more bulk. Curse handles anything Dream Eater can't, but is only used if necessary. Note that Hypnosis has its usual 60% accuracy against the second and third Pokémon, so this Gengar relies on Evasion and Substitute for that. While scary as hell, this set occasionally loses to Quick Claws, extremely long 'miss streaks' with Hypnosis and Aerial Ace Early Bird Pokémon.
Another take on Evasion passing, which doesn't require Venusaur (or Sweet Scent, more importantly), is using VENONAT, because it has Compoundeyes. Another evidence, by the way, that Venonat should be Butterfree's pre-evolution (although unrelated ;)) This allows for a better lead to be searched, i.e. one that can use Thief, lower Speed, and handle Metagross to an extent, and have enough bulk to do at least two of these things most of the time. The quest to find this Pokémon in the pool of Poison-types ended with Nidoqueen.
Nidoqueen @ [No Item]
Ability: Poison Point
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 12 Def / 84 SpD / 156 Spe
Careful Nature (+SpD, -SpA)
- Thief
- Icy Wind
- Counter
- Filler
This Nidoqueen, whose bulk surprised me tbh, does all of the things above and Counters stuff like Metagross unless they use Psychic. Earthquake, Protect or Flatter are all decent options for the filler slot. It has enough Speed to use Icy Wind TWICE on some relevant Pokémon, such as Starmie (who doesn't KO me), which is necessary because Venonat only has 106 Speed at most.
Venonat @ Pinch Berry / Leftovers
Ability: Compoundeyes
EVs: 204 HP / 52 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature (+Spe, -Atk)
- Sleep Powder
- Substitute
- Double Team
- Baton Pass
Anyone reminded of the Bug-team Butterfree? Yeah, that's about how dependable this is (not so much), but being able to actually Baton Pass the Evasion boosts makes a big difference. I'd even consider it for a sweeper with Nightmare, but it's too slow and needs to rely on Sleep lasting longer than 3 turns too many times. Leftovers makes it have more chances to setup should the opponent wake up too fast a couple of times, and a Pinch Berry greatly benefits the eventual sweeper.
For a sweeper, all the options above can be used, as well as maybe slower stuff like Curse Muk. The presence of Aerial Ace leads, Nidoqueen's typing inviting many super effective moves that can crit (like Surf / Ice Beam / Psychic / Earthquake) and Venonat's inability to do anything useful if Nidoqueen gets haxed eventually convinced me this kind of team was too independable.
So what DID I end up with? I was pretty certain there had to be another way to enable setting up something. I decided to try and lead with Torment Gengar, whose Speed prevents some hax for free already, use a second Pokémon to take best advantage of that, and pick a sweeper that best suits this setup, whatever it ends up like. It turns out that Gengar can remove Clear Body and either use Thief or Torment against Metagross pretty dependably, which prompted me to try Weezing, whose Ground immunity, great natural bulk, access to a 100%-accurate Accuracy-lowering move and Memento stand out. And so, after much puzzling and worrying, came together the final team.
Mono Poison
Gengar @ Cheri Berry
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 68 SpD / 180 Spe
Jolly Nature (+Spe, -Atk)
- Torment
- Skill Swap
- Grudge
- Protect / Lick
Gengar outspeeds everything up to offensive Starmie and uses Torment on turn 1 most of the time, while it survives an attack. That usually implies it gets KO'ed by one of their not-strongest-attacks against Gengar, e.g. Thunderbolt, or even better, Surf (take Starmie in your mind for now, although against Starmie I have to use Grudge right away). It then uses Grudge to deplete the PP of that not-so-strong move, or uses Protect to make sure you Grudge away their best move (Psychic). Skill Swap is for Clear Body Pokémon. Sadly I can't fit Thief on this moveset, nor would I have time to use it. Luckily, Grudge still works against Quick Clawers with good probability and the rest of the team is pretty slow anyway so I'll take that.
Lick is a pretty decent paralysis-inducing move and I used it instead of e.g. Secret Power to be able to hit Ghost-types (and because it's cool to actually use LICK xD). Fun fact: it 3HKOes Jynx most of the time if I use a Jolly Nature.
EV-wise, Gengar survives Metagross' Shadow Ball (also Meteor Mash, as a result), but the damage calculator invites Metagross to use Psychic whenever it can (KO's 6.25% of the time, sadly), because that does JUST a little more damage. Getting rid of Psychic is pretty cool, because Weezing tanks the other moves pretty well. Cheri Berry is to prevent getting paralyzed by Thunderbolt before Grudging them (e.g. against Anabel's Raikou).
Weezing @ Lum Berry
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpD / 4 Spe
Bold Nature (+Def, -Atk)
- Protect
- Smokescreen
- Memento
- Rest
Protect makes it stall out most opponents after they have been Tormented AND Grudged, essentially taking away their best two moves. Weezing and Gengar sharing some defensive type characteristics is essential here; if they have Earthquake in their moveset for example, they essentially only have one effective move left. Weezing attempts to get the opponent to -6 Accuracy before Memento'ing on the PERFECT turn, i.e. so the opponent uses a move that's not good against Muk on the next turn, so it can setup a Substitute, starting a 'slow-sub Curse loop'. This is especially useful against Dragon Dancing opponents; they usually have Earthquake and Dragon Dance PP fodder left so the perfect timing is essential here.
Weezing has the special bulk to avoid being 3HKOed by Starmie's coverage moves over 90% of the time, and the physical bulk to avoid being 2HKOed by nearly everything, and survive plenty of Rock Slides from e.g. DDMence. Rest prolongs its life, making it possible to go for another round of Evasion-lowering and postpone Memento for the 'perfect moment'. Secret Power is an option if you think that's unnecessary, because paralysis is great when setting up Muk (that's why I had Lick AND Secret Power on one of the earlier versions of this team), although it might screw up the Torment + Protect strategy.
Finally, Lum Berry is chosen over Chesto Berry because a bad-timed FP or confusion event could mean the end. If it gets consumed before I use Rest, that usually means they're using a move I survive pretty easily anyway.
Muk @ Leftovers
Ability: Sticky Hold
EVs: 220 HP / 4 Atk / 88 Def / 196 SpD
Careful Nature (+SpD, -SpA)
- Curse
- Substitute
- Sludge Bomb
- Focus Punch
Even though I told you I'm not fond of Curse sweepers in general, Muk came out on top of the other sweepers because it's the only Pokémon that actually REALLY benefits from Memento, as it has the bulk required to make its Substitutes impenetrable against e.g. STAB Ice Beams from Mementoed opponents. For example, Beedrill still gets 2-shot by way too many opponents and Venusaur has annoying weaknesses against Fire and Ice. Gengar is already used for setup, but even if you'd use Haunter for example, you'd still need Double Team on the moveset.
This Muk sets up pretty easily against opponents crippled by Weezing, but has to switch between Curse and Substitute in a 'slow way' to setup against Earthquakes (which they won't use against Gengar and Weezing if other options are available). This sometimes makes it a little harder to play this team, and sometimes I make mistakes myself (especially when I should be counting, haha).
Muk is FAT on the Special side, needs no meaningful Attack investment to sweep at +6 because the moves it's using have such amazing Power. I considered Shadow Punch too, because Double Team Dusclops and some Claydol variants might cost a lot of PP to wear down, but Sludge Bomb hits harder even when Not Very Effective (and Shadow Punch would be neutral , i.e. against Flygon) and has that nice 30% chance to inflict poison. Hidden Power [Ghost] is a slightly more powerful option that's also stronger than Sludge Bomb when Super Effective, but still doesn't let me OHKO Flygon without more investment. Fortunately, my Substitute lives its EQ at +6 with around 70% chance anyway.
A sample streak will be added today. I hope you enjoyed reading, and would like to hear if you have any other ideas about mono Poison.
I really wanted to use Crobat and/or Swalot (Yawn) somehow, but couldn't fit them on any serious team.
EDIT: Sample streak now available! Things didn't go that well and this was definitely one of the harder streaks I didn't end up losing, but these kind of confusion / attract shenanigans also demonstrate the relative frailty of the team.
Needless to say, this team might be the most independable until now, so I'll probably to start the 119-streak challenge with it. It's still not bad, however, and in hindsight I've used some pretty weird, funny setups I'd like to share before revealing the final team.
As usual, I started looking at Pokémon that are capable of sweeping the opponent's team, worrying about the possibilities to set them up later. That's where it got difficult already; there's no good ways of increasing Speed and the faster Poison-types don't get decent setup moves. The closest we can get, not considering Curse since I don't prefer sweeping slow without Shell Armor, is Growth/Swords Dance Vileplume / Venusaur / Victreebel. Since Sunny Day occupies a much-needed moveslot, I figure Venusaur had the best Special sweeping capabilities, and has to make do with a set like
Venusaur @ Salac Berry ** LETITGROW
Ability: Overgrow
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 68 SpD / 84 Spe
Modest Nature (+SpA, -Atk)
IVs: 30 Atk / 30 Def
- Growth
- Magical Leaf
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Substitute
Decent Speed tier, enough SpA to enable sweeping with Overgrow (it OHKOs Metagross with around 80% chance iirc), but Grass has bad coverage and HP[Ice] doesn't OHKO all resisters, like Articuno. Giga Drain is an option, but I like to stay in Salac range, especially because it's sometimes hard to get back against slower, QC opponents. Its Poison typing makes it frail to setup though, as with nearly all the other Poison-types.
Other ideas? Well, actually Beedrill can pack quite a punch in the right circumstances (Evasion, +6 Atk in Swarm range):
Beedrill @ Salac Berry ** VIRIDIAN
Ability: Swarm
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SpA)
IVs: 30 SpD / 30 Spe
- Swords Dance
- Substitute
- Hidden Power [Bug]
- Endeavor
This one can Endeavor the Pokémon it can't get through (no matter what two attacking moves you pick, you'll always be walled somehow), and coupled with a good finisher (might be a Pokémon used in the setup too) it seems pretty decent. On paper, it looks better than the Venusaur at least (but it isn't).
Another Swords Dancer is Victreebel, but it has an even worse coverage problem than Beedrill. Playing around with Morning Sun got me nowhere either. Same story with Tentacruel, who hasn't got enough power to begin with. I can't get the right support for subseeding too, it seems. Besides, using that strategy on Mono Grass is enough IMO.
Before I continue with the team structures I considered, here's another set I thought would be amazing when fully setup with Evasion passed to it:
Gengar @ Leftovers
- Curse
- Hypnosis
- Substitute
- Dream Eater
This Gengar is extremely deadly when passed +6 Evasion and a Petaya boost, because it has the luxury of not having to waste a moveslot on Double Team. With Double Team, you end up with a set that reminds of the Ghost-team Dusclops, but as Gengar lacks Pain Split, you'll find yourself praying on misses / hitting Hypnosis too much in order to recover enough health with Leftovers.
You can use 0 HP IVs too to increase the HP percentage healed with Dream Eater, but in my experience it's more important to survive an occasional hit. You can even make it bulky enough to survive Metagross' MM, for example. I used it on a Venomoth team, so a more detailed set accustomed to that team is below.
That's pretty much it, if you want to "sweep" with some Speed. Liking the idea of that last Gengar, I came up with the following:
Venusaur @ Salac Berry
Ability: Overgrow
EVs: 252 HP / 12 Def / 4 SpA / 148 SpD / 92 Spe
Calm Nature (+SpD, -Atk)
- Sweet Scent
- Sleep Powder
- Roar
- Giga Drain / Protect
This Venusaur tanks non-Overheat Fire-type assaults and lives the strongest unboosted Psychics in the game. It uses Sweet Scent and gets into Salac range against these threats, enabling it to remove Lum/Chesto Berries with a 99.75%-accurate Sleep Powder. It Roars away Clear Body Pokémon (after potentially sleeping them, helping Gengar later as well), and Protect is to scout their move. Giga Drain owns (offensive and defensive) Starmie, because Overgrow Giga Drain + Normal Giga Drain KO's and Salac makes me faster. This is necessary because Venomoth can't outspeed Starmie and it might have Lum Berry as well. Giga Drain can be switched to Protect to scout and make use of Gengar's Curse later.
Too bad Venusaur doesn't learn Thief; that would probably make this team an actual contender.
Venomoth @ Petaya Berry
Ability: Shield Dust
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature (+Spe, -Atk)
- Sleep Powder
- Substitute
- Double Team
- Baton Pass
After Sweet Scent, this sets up at least 4 Double Teams almost surely before passing them to Gengar, together with a Petaya Boost. The Special Defense is to survive some Psychics better. By the way, this is the only viable Poison-type Baton Passer (Ariados is terrible).
Gengar @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature (+Spe, -Atk)
- Curse
- Hypnosis
- Substitute
- Dream Eater
After Petaya Berry, this Gengar has a 'STAB' Dream Eater to work with. Hypnosis hits with around 80% accuracy after one Sweet Scent (and 99.6% or more after more Sweet Scents). It recovers HP pretty fast that way, which is why full SpA is used over more bulk. Curse handles anything Dream Eater can't, but is only used if necessary. Note that Hypnosis has its usual 60% accuracy against the second and third Pokémon, so this Gengar relies on Evasion and Substitute for that. While scary as hell, this set occasionally loses to Quick Claws, extremely long 'miss streaks' with Hypnosis and Aerial Ace Early Bird Pokémon.
Another take on Evasion passing, which doesn't require Venusaur (or Sweet Scent, more importantly), is using VENONAT, because it has Compoundeyes. Another evidence, by the way, that Venonat should be Butterfree's pre-evolution (although unrelated ;)) This allows for a better lead to be searched, i.e. one that can use Thief, lower Speed, and handle Metagross to an extent, and have enough bulk to do at least two of these things most of the time. The quest to find this Pokémon in the pool of Poison-types ended with Nidoqueen.
Nidoqueen @ [No Item]
Ability: Poison Point
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 12 Def / 84 SpD / 156 Spe
Careful Nature (+SpD, -SpA)
- Thief
- Icy Wind
- Counter
- Filler
This Nidoqueen, whose bulk surprised me tbh, does all of the things above and Counters stuff like Metagross unless they use Psychic. Earthquake, Protect or Flatter are all decent options for the filler slot. It has enough Speed to use Icy Wind TWICE on some relevant Pokémon, such as Starmie (who doesn't KO me), which is necessary because Venonat only has 106 Speed at most.
Venonat @ Pinch Berry / Leftovers
Ability: Compoundeyes
EVs: 204 HP / 52 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature (+Spe, -Atk)
- Sleep Powder
- Substitute
- Double Team
- Baton Pass
Anyone reminded of the Bug-team Butterfree? Yeah, that's about how dependable this is (not so much), but being able to actually Baton Pass the Evasion boosts makes a big difference. I'd even consider it for a sweeper with Nightmare, but it's too slow and needs to rely on Sleep lasting longer than 3 turns too many times. Leftovers makes it have more chances to setup should the opponent wake up too fast a couple of times, and a Pinch Berry greatly benefits the eventual sweeper.
For a sweeper, all the options above can be used, as well as maybe slower stuff like Curse Muk. The presence of Aerial Ace leads, Nidoqueen's typing inviting many super effective moves that can crit (like Surf / Ice Beam / Psychic / Earthquake) and Venonat's inability to do anything useful if Nidoqueen gets haxed eventually convinced me this kind of team was too independable.
So what DID I end up with? I was pretty certain there had to be another way to enable setting up something. I decided to try and lead with Torment Gengar, whose Speed prevents some hax for free already, use a second Pokémon to take best advantage of that, and pick a sweeper that best suits this setup, whatever it ends up like. It turns out that Gengar can remove Clear Body and either use Thief or Torment against Metagross pretty dependably, which prompted me to try Weezing, whose Ground immunity, great natural bulk, access to a 100%-accurate Accuracy-lowering move and Memento stand out. And so, after much puzzling and worrying, came together the final team.
Mono Poison
Gengar @ Cheri Berry
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 68 SpD / 180 Spe
Jolly Nature (+Spe, -Atk)
- Torment
- Skill Swap
- Grudge
- Protect / Lick
Gengar outspeeds everything up to offensive Starmie and uses Torment on turn 1 most of the time, while it survives an attack. That usually implies it gets KO'ed by one of their not-strongest-attacks against Gengar, e.g. Thunderbolt, or even better, Surf (take Starmie in your mind for now, although against Starmie I have to use Grudge right away). It then uses Grudge to deplete the PP of that not-so-strong move, or uses Protect to make sure you Grudge away their best move (Psychic). Skill Swap is for Clear Body Pokémon. Sadly I can't fit Thief on this moveset, nor would I have time to use it. Luckily, Grudge still works against Quick Clawers with good probability and the rest of the team is pretty slow anyway so I'll take that.
Lick is a pretty decent paralysis-inducing move and I used it instead of e.g. Secret Power to be able to hit Ghost-types (and because it's cool to actually use LICK xD). Fun fact: it 3HKOes Jynx most of the time if I use a Jolly Nature.
EV-wise, Gengar survives Metagross' Shadow Ball (also Meteor Mash, as a result), but the damage calculator invites Metagross to use Psychic whenever it can (KO's 6.25% of the time, sadly), because that does JUST a little more damage. Getting rid of Psychic is pretty cool, because Weezing tanks the other moves pretty well. Cheri Berry is to prevent getting paralyzed by Thunderbolt before Grudging them (e.g. against Anabel's Raikou).
Weezing @ Lum Berry
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpD / 4 Spe
Bold Nature (+Def, -Atk)
- Protect
- Smokescreen
- Memento
- Rest
Protect makes it stall out most opponents after they have been Tormented AND Grudged, essentially taking away their best two moves. Weezing and Gengar sharing some defensive type characteristics is essential here; if they have Earthquake in their moveset for example, they essentially only have one effective move left. Weezing attempts to get the opponent to -6 Accuracy before Memento'ing on the PERFECT turn, i.e. so the opponent uses a move that's not good against Muk on the next turn, so it can setup a Substitute, starting a 'slow-sub Curse loop'. This is especially useful against Dragon Dancing opponents; they usually have Earthquake and Dragon Dance PP fodder left so the perfect timing is essential here.
Weezing has the special bulk to avoid being 3HKOed by Starmie's coverage moves over 90% of the time, and the physical bulk to avoid being 2HKOed by nearly everything, and survive plenty of Rock Slides from e.g. DDMence. Rest prolongs its life, making it possible to go for another round of Evasion-lowering and postpone Memento for the 'perfect moment'. Secret Power is an option if you think that's unnecessary, because paralysis is great when setting up Muk (that's why I had Lick AND Secret Power on one of the earlier versions of this team), although it might screw up the Torment + Protect strategy.
Finally, Lum Berry is chosen over Chesto Berry because a bad-timed FP or confusion event could mean the end. If it gets consumed before I use Rest, that usually means they're using a move I survive pretty easily anyway.
Muk @ Leftovers
Ability: Sticky Hold
EVs: 220 HP / 4 Atk / 88 Def / 196 SpD
Careful Nature (+SpD, -SpA)
- Curse
- Substitute
- Sludge Bomb
- Focus Punch
Even though I told you I'm not fond of Curse sweepers in general, Muk came out on top of the other sweepers because it's the only Pokémon that actually REALLY benefits from Memento, as it has the bulk required to make its Substitutes impenetrable against e.g. STAB Ice Beams from Mementoed opponents. For example, Beedrill still gets 2-shot by way too many opponents and Venusaur has annoying weaknesses against Fire and Ice. Gengar is already used for setup, but even if you'd use Haunter for example, you'd still need Double Team on the moveset.
This Muk sets up pretty easily against opponents crippled by Weezing, but has to switch between Curse and Substitute in a 'slow way' to setup against Earthquakes (which they won't use against Gengar and Weezing if other options are available). This sometimes makes it a little harder to play this team, and sometimes I make mistakes myself (especially when I should be counting, haha).
Muk is FAT on the Special side, needs no meaningful Attack investment to sweep at +6 because the moves it's using have such amazing Power. I considered Shadow Punch too, because Double Team Dusclops and some Claydol variants might cost a lot of PP to wear down, but Sludge Bomb hits harder even when Not Very Effective (and Shadow Punch would be neutral , i.e. against Flygon) and has that nice 30% chance to inflict poison. Hidden Power [Ghost] is a slightly more powerful option that's also stronger than Sludge Bomb when Super Effective, but still doesn't let me OHKO Flygon without more investment. Fortunately, my Substitute lives its EQ at +6 with around 70% chance anyway.
A sample streak will be added today. I hope you enjoyed reading, and would like to hear if you have any other ideas about mono Poison.
I really wanted to use Crobat and/or Swalot (Yawn) somehow, but couldn't fit them on any serious team.
EDIT: Sample streak now available! Things didn't go that well and this was definitely one of the harder streaks I didn't end up losing, but these kind of confusion / attract shenanigans also demonstrate the relative frailty of the team.
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I can share many ideas about this; will reply to this when I have time!
Luna/Solrock sounds like a dicey choice; they're very slow and weak to a lot of stuff. Personally I'd go with Ninjask first to get some speed/offense boosts and then a defensive Pokemon (Umbreon, Vaporeon, or indeed Lunatone) next. But interested to see what you come up with!
If I decided to run Cradily as my reciever, I could always use Stockpile to get the buffs, but then I wouldn’t be able to go any higher than +3. I’m not sold on SolLuna as of yet, but I feel like they would be the best option for passing defensive boosts. Perhaps Ninjask could pass double team to SolLuna, who goes +6 in defenses (and hopefully passing a substitute too..) to Cradily (who at this point, can’t be forced out, status’d or OHKO’d. Only problem I see is with Perish Song, which has also made me think about Mr. Mime as a reciever, who also wouldn’t be affected by Roar, leaving only a handful of mons who could actually force it out. I’ve even thought about leading with a TrickZam with the intent to stall my opponent’s first pokemon of all PP, then swapping to Solrock or Lunatone to set up.
Also been brainstorming a team that revolves around Endavour Sceptile, if you have tips for that as well.
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Just a heads-up: this aspect of Stockpile didn't actually exist until Generation IV. In Emerald, it can only be used to set up Swallow and Spit Up; it doesn't boost your defenses at all.
Number fourteen is gonna be a quick one, and it's without doubt the best monotype that will be (as wasn't hard to 'Future See'): Psychic!
The most obvious team structure for a Mono Psychic team is a mindless but effective powerhouse team; a lineup such as Lati@s (I can only use Latias), Metagross and Slowbro/Slowking/Claydol, for example, is already quite good and doesn't deviate far from a 'Werster team'; it wins streaks quite fast and with reasonable probability because it hasn't got glaring weaknesses, although in general, the Battle Tower has too many ways of haxing through to cover them for long streaks.
I directly went for an archetype I'm already very comfortable with: Trick abuse. For the Trickster there's a choice of using Grumpig or Alakazam, for second Pokes there's a bunch of pretty good options, and I was pretty sure the sweeper was either going to be Latias (if it's not used as a second Pokémon crippler) or Medicham (Bulk Up / Recover / Sub / HP[Rock] or something), since I used Latios on the Dragon team already.
My first attempt for a team backbone actually turned out so well (after finetuning filler moves and EVs) I'm not going to bother sharing other ideas this time (in favor of further improving the Fighting-type squad I'm working on)!
Mono Psychic
Grumpig @ Choice Band
Ability: Thick Fat
EVs: 196 HP / 220 Def / 92 Spe
Timid Nature (+Spe, -Atk)
- Trick
- Icy Wind
- Flash
- Skill Swap
Because my second and third Pokémon are weak to Ice and I'm already at risk against Quick Claw physical leads such as Ursaring and Metagross, I definitely wanted my lead to be bulkier than Alakazam. Grumpig, while much slower than Alakazam, has enough bulk to live through a Choice Band Meteor Mash, outspeed it use Skill Swap on it. Also it doesn't get 2HKOed by Jolteon's Thunderbolt, a feature Alakazam can only dream of. On top of that, Thick Fat is amazing. Naturally, Alakazam has entirely different argument why it's good, but since I don't have a naturally STURDY second Pokémon on this team, I figured Grumpig definitely outclasses Alakazam in this case.
Icy Wind is pretty useful against the likes of Raikou, Jolteon and Crobat, making it much easier for Xatu to cripple them. Flash instead of Mud-Slap to affect any Pokémon, although 70% accuracy can be a letdown. Fortunately, it's just a filler move anyway, and usually I don't really desperately need it to hit. Skill Swap is essential here to remove Clear Body, but removing stuff like Static and Effect Spore isn't as important as with the Zam/Skarm/Latios team because Latias runs Lum Berry anyway (Dragon Fang doesn't help it anyway like it does on that team). Getting rid of Pressure is good as well, actually, especially vs Double Team-abusing Pressure Pokes.
Grumpig DOESN'T survive max Attack CB Dusclops' Shadow Ball, interestingly, but Xatu's moveset is accustomed to solve that problem to an extent.
It was one of the few things that actually got through this team without extreme hax while testing / optimizing.
Xatu @ Salac Berry
Ability: Synchronize
EVs: 60 HP / 252 Def / 196 Spe
Timid Nature (+Spe, -Atk)
- Featherdance
- Thunder Wave
- Endure
- Reflect
There's two Pokémon that learn a move lowering the opponent's Attack by two stages: Espeon (Charm) and Xatu (Featherdance). Espeon is faster, and outspeeding opposing Espeon is actually important if they decide to Calm Mind + CB Bite. This Xatu solves that by an EndureSalac set, ensuring it can at least use Thunder Wave on Espeon, which is enough for Latias to win. Xatu's Flying-type is very welcome against Heracross, who would still OHKO Espeon after a Charm. Also, Xatu is more physically bulky than Espeon and learns Thunder Wave, which was the big decider for me.
In the first concept Xatu had more HP and therefore more staying power on the Special side, but Thunderbolts are handled by Latias fine (also because of the Lum Berry) and Ice Beams don't even get through Grumpig. Xatu therefore has the luxury of being as physically bulky as possible (after reaching 154 Speed), and Featherdance + Reflect guarantee it lives two CB Shadow Balls from Dusclops. This allows Xatu to Featherdance it twice, just like it would without Reflect, but Latias will have three turns of Reflect left which allows its Substitute to stay intact against Shadow Ball during these turns. Tanking Shadow Ball without a Substitute up is really dangerous, because a Critical Hit royally OHKOes. Who'd ever have thought that Dusclops would be such a problem on the offensive side? Houndoom's Crunch is still a problem, however, even with more SpD. Against that, I use Flash with Grumpig instead of Trick, and hope Flash + paralysis + Latias stalling cheeses me through it.
Against all other Pokémon that use Shadow Ball, e.g. Metagross, using FeatherDance alone is enough. Reflect has more uses though; if Grumpig gets crit on turn 1 (before or after the Trick) and can't use Skill Swap, Thunder Wave + Reflect at least gives Latias a fighting chance.
Latias @ Lum Berry
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 36 HP / 252 Def / 220 Spe
Timid Nature (+Spe, -Atk)
- Calm Mind
- Substitute
- Recover
- Dragon Claw
The "weak sister" of Latios; it wouldn't be my first choice for the recipient. On the other hand, Latias' Substitute is definitely toughter to break than Latios', especially since this Latias "accepts being weak" and therefore focuses on Speed and Defense, at the cost of not being able to OHKO the things Latios can. Still, with +6/+6, it's nigh unbeatable and it can even live a Critical Hit Meteor Mash (although not with great chance). This Latias is faster than the Latios used on my non-mono Trick team, which is nice against the likes of Aerodactyl, and Quick Claw physical assaults generally don't KO it without a Critical Hit. The easiness with which it sets up against reduced-Attack Struggles is ridiculous, and having a Lum Berry makes the team much easier and faster to play (now I can enjoy switching into CB status-inducing moves).
At +6 SpA, Latias still OHKOs everything that is below most Lapras' bulk, say, and its 130 base SpD stat easily keeps the sub intact after some boosts against STAB Ice moves / Calm Minded Thunderbolts from Raikou during setup / etc.
That's the "quick one" :)
A sample streak was already uploaded yesterday! Three to go...
Edit: Realized the worrying about Dusclops isn't even needed; not using Trick seems the safer play. Still, I wouldn't change Xatu's moveset, because it's still the best it can do against Metagross if it crits through Grumpig on turn 1.
The most obvious team structure for a Mono Psychic team is a mindless but effective powerhouse team; a lineup such as Lati@s (I can only use Latias), Metagross and Slowbro/Slowking/Claydol, for example, is already quite good and doesn't deviate far from a 'Werster team'; it wins streaks quite fast and with reasonable probability because it hasn't got glaring weaknesses, although in general, the Battle Tower has too many ways of haxing through to cover them for long streaks.
I directly went for an archetype I'm already very comfortable with: Trick abuse. For the Trickster there's a choice of using Grumpig or Alakazam, for second Pokes there's a bunch of pretty good options, and I was pretty sure the sweeper was either going to be Latias (if it's not used as a second Pokémon crippler) or Medicham (Bulk Up / Recover / Sub / HP[Rock] or something), since I used Latios on the Dragon team already.
My first attempt for a team backbone actually turned out so well (after finetuning filler moves and EVs) I'm not going to bother sharing other ideas this time (in favor of further improving the Fighting-type squad I'm working on)!
Mono Psychic
Grumpig @ Choice Band
Ability: Thick Fat
EVs: 196 HP / 220 Def / 92 Spe
Timid Nature (+Spe, -Atk)
- Trick
- Icy Wind
- Flash
- Skill Swap
Because my second and third Pokémon are weak to Ice and I'm already at risk against Quick Claw physical leads such as Ursaring and Metagross, I definitely wanted my lead to be bulkier than Alakazam. Grumpig, while much slower than Alakazam, has enough bulk to live through a Choice Band Meteor Mash, outspeed it use Skill Swap on it. Also it doesn't get 2HKOed by Jolteon's Thunderbolt, a feature Alakazam can only dream of. On top of that, Thick Fat is amazing. Naturally, Alakazam has entirely different argument why it's good, but since I don't have a naturally STURDY second Pokémon on this team, I figured Grumpig definitely outclasses Alakazam in this case.
Icy Wind is pretty useful against the likes of Raikou, Jolteon and Crobat, making it much easier for Xatu to cripple them. Flash instead of Mud-Slap to affect any Pokémon, although 70% accuracy can be a letdown. Fortunately, it's just a filler move anyway, and usually I don't really desperately need it to hit. Skill Swap is essential here to remove Clear Body, but removing stuff like Static and Effect Spore isn't as important as with the Zam/Skarm/Latios team because Latias runs Lum Berry anyway (Dragon Fang doesn't help it anyway like it does on that team). Getting rid of Pressure is good as well, actually, especially vs Double Team-abusing Pressure Pokes.
Grumpig DOESN'T survive max Attack CB Dusclops' Shadow Ball, interestingly, but Xatu's moveset is accustomed to solve that problem to an extent.
It was one of the few things that actually got through this team without extreme hax while testing / optimizing.
Xatu @ Salac Berry
Ability: Synchronize
EVs: 60 HP / 252 Def / 196 Spe
Timid Nature (+Spe, -Atk)
- Featherdance
- Thunder Wave
- Endure
- Reflect
There's two Pokémon that learn a move lowering the opponent's Attack by two stages: Espeon (Charm) and Xatu (Featherdance). Espeon is faster, and outspeeding opposing Espeon is actually important if they decide to Calm Mind + CB Bite. This Xatu solves that by an EndureSalac set, ensuring it can at least use Thunder Wave on Espeon, which is enough for Latias to win. Xatu's Flying-type is very welcome against Heracross, who would still OHKO Espeon after a Charm. Also, Xatu is more physically bulky than Espeon and learns Thunder Wave, which was the big decider for me.
In the first concept Xatu had more HP and therefore more staying power on the Special side, but Thunderbolts are handled by Latias fine (also because of the Lum Berry) and Ice Beams don't even get through Grumpig. Xatu therefore has the luxury of being as physically bulky as possible (after reaching 154 Speed), and Featherdance + Reflect guarantee it lives two CB Shadow Balls from Dusclops. This allows Xatu to Featherdance it twice, just like it would without Reflect, but Latias will have three turns of Reflect left which allows its Substitute to stay intact against Shadow Ball during these turns. Tanking Shadow Ball without a Substitute up is really dangerous, because a Critical Hit royally OHKOes. Who'd ever have thought that Dusclops would be such a problem on the offensive side? Houndoom's Crunch is still a problem, however, even with more SpD. Against that, I use Flash with Grumpig instead of Trick, and hope Flash + paralysis + Latias stalling cheeses me through it.
Against all other Pokémon that use Shadow Ball, e.g. Metagross, using FeatherDance alone is enough. Reflect has more uses though; if Grumpig gets crit on turn 1 (before or after the Trick) and can't use Skill Swap, Thunder Wave + Reflect at least gives Latias a fighting chance.
Latias @ Lum Berry
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 36 HP / 252 Def / 220 Spe
Timid Nature (+Spe, -Atk)
- Calm Mind
- Substitute
- Recover
- Dragon Claw
The "weak sister" of Latios; it wouldn't be my first choice for the recipient. On the other hand, Latias' Substitute is definitely toughter to break than Latios', especially since this Latias "accepts being weak" and therefore focuses on Speed and Defense, at the cost of not being able to OHKO the things Latios can. Still, with +6/+6, it's nigh unbeatable and it can even live a Critical Hit Meteor Mash (although not with great chance). This Latias is faster than the Latios used on my non-mono Trick team, which is nice against the likes of Aerodactyl, and Quick Claw physical assaults generally don't KO it without a Critical Hit. The easiness with which it sets up against reduced-Attack Struggles is ridiculous, and having a Lum Berry makes the team much easier and faster to play (now I can enjoy switching into CB status-inducing moves).
At +6 SpA, Latias still OHKOs everything that is below most Lapras' bulk, say, and its 130 base SpD stat easily keeps the sub intact after some boosts against STAB Ice moves / Calm Minded Thunderbolts from Raikou during setup / etc.
That's the "quick one" :)
A sample streak was already uploaded yesterday! Three to go...
Edit: Realized the worrying about Dusclops isn't even needed; not using Trick seems the safer play. Still, I wouldn't change Xatu's moveset, because it's still the best it can do against Metagross if it crits through Grumpig on turn 1.
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Aw what that sucks. I suppose Cradily learns Iron Defense and could boost his defense by himself, but I’d be between Gorebyss and Espeon for my SPDef passer, and if I use the latter I’ll most likely run an Octillery instead (since Espeon would be running Calm Mind)
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After 'meditating' about it for some time; this is Mono type number fifteen: Mono Fighting!
I was pretty concerned about making a decent team with Fighting-types, because there's very little one can do to tank strong STAB Psychics and stuff like CB Aerial Ace from Aerodactyl, DDMence, Crobat, etc. Offensively, there are many options: Reversal sweeping, Endeavor + Mach Punch Hitmontop, Blaze/Reversal, Bulk Up, Swords Dance, Belly Drum, and nearly every Fighting-type packs a good Attack stat. Some useful support moves are available as well: Screens, priority moves, Knock Off/Thief, Sand Attack, Mud-Slap, etc.
Before making my first attempt, I figured my lead should be able to either win or setup agains the likes of Lati@s, other powerful Psychic-types and DDMence. This had me use a Hitmontop who, after Intimidate, is (also Specially) bulky enough to survive anything they throw at me on turn 1 and support the rest of the team with Intimidate as well. As a backup, I used a Choice Bander to finish off Endeavor fodder, and a Pokémon that is able to setup against less offensive opponents. This resulted in the following, unoptimized team:
Hitmontop @ Salac Berry
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 220 HP / 4 Atk / 4 Def / 132 SpD / 148 Spe
Careful Nature (+SpD, -SpA)
- Substitute
- Endeavor
- Mach Punch
- Hidden Power [Ghost] / Toxic / Double Team / Bulk Up
This Hitmontop LOVES faster opponents, because they never OHKO without crits or OHKO moves. It then makes a Sub, enters Salac Berry, uses the now-faster Endeavor and finishes them with Mach Punch. Against stronger Psychics that can't use Calm Mind, it uses Endeavor on turn 1 because it won't have enough HP left for a Substitute. If they can Calm Mind, however, like Espeon, use Substitute anyway. If they use Calm Mind, I'll destroy them eventually after slow-subbing down and if they use Psychic, I can at least try to kill them and if they survive the following Mach Punch, Medicham uses Fake Out on them. Same story with Salamence; always use Substitute. If they don't attack me, they're dead.
If everything goes well, this Hitmontop beats their lead and reduces their second Pokémon to finishing material with Endeavor. The filler move greatly affects the game: HP[Ghost] lets it beat Gengar (2HKOs), Toxic gives me something to do against slower opponents that don't break the sub or setup (Wailord, etc), Double Team can let Hitmontop cheese through their whole team when given the time to setup, and Bulk Up is good against physical opponents who won't break its sub after a while; giving Hitmontop a chance to Fight the second or third Pokémon as well. A +6 Mach Punch 2HKOs many Pokémon.
Hitmontop hits 109 Speed to outrun Gengar/Espeon after Salac Berry, and is still slow enough for most threatening opponents. Sadly, Salac Berry is needed even with Mach Punch, because otherwise it won't be able to dent the second Pokémon.
Medicham @ Choice Band
Ability: Pure Power
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -Spe)
- Brick Break
- Shadow Ball
- Fake Out
- Rock Slide / Hyper Beam
Medicham OHKOs many Pokémon in the tower right off the bat. Fake Out ends those second Pokémon that just took an Endeavor if they're faster than Medicham. While Rock Slide is handy against Flying-types and such, Hyper Beam is just as powerful as a super-effective Rock Slide and gets stuff like Nidoqueen/king too. This is the main Gengar "counter" if Hitmontop doesn't run HP[Ghost]
Machamp @ Chesto Berry
Ability: Guts
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpD / 4 Spe
Careful Nature (+SpD, -SpA)
- Bulk Up
- Light Screen
- Vital Throw / Revenge
- Rest
Finally, a slow setup Pokémon against opponents Hitmontop outspeeds already. Light Screen makes it surprisingly bulky, and Bulk Up + Vital Throw/Revenge is pretty scary. Vital Throw never misses, but Revenge is almost twice as strong if they attack me.
Even though this team is awesome to play with and certainly more dynamic than my standard crippling strategies, it can't really handle anything that doesn't go according to plan, i.e. Quick Claw Psychics from Slowking/bro. Machamp's slowness and relatively long setup time makes it vulnerable to crithax or other things like Confusion hax, and very often I found myself banking on whether Medicham can take on their last Pokémon without switching moves. Even though I have considerable knowledge of Frontier sets and played pretty well in general, the team struggles to get through a streak. I had to face it: this kind of team sucks, as much as I wanted to make this Hitmontop work. I tried other stuff as well: Light Screen "special tank" Medicham with BrBr/ShBa/LiSc/Recover, Sleep Talk / Bulk Up Heracross for the last spot, Agility/Liechi Hitmonchan, you name it, but nothing really worked.
Eventually, I realized Belly Drum Poliwrath couldn't be setup reliably enough as well, so I ended up optimizing a Reversal Medicham strategy.
Mono Fighting
Poliwrath @ [No Item]
Ability: Damp
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 4 SpA / 44 SpD / 204 Spe
Calm Nature (+SpD, -Atk)
- Thief
- Icy Wind
- Mud-Slap
- Haze
Remember Politoed on Mono Water, anyone? This is pretty much the exact same set (with Haze over Perish Song), with an additional Psychic/Flying weakness. Poliwrath lives all unboosted Attacks (even Alakazam's Psychic and CB Aero Aerial Ace / Dodrio Drill Peck) and outspeeds everything but Crobat/Jolteon after Icy Wind. It Thiefs away Quick Claw (getting Brightpowder/Focus Band is nice as well), reduces accuracy of non-Ground-immune Pokémon with Mud-Slap and Hazes away either Curse boosts from Registeel and Regirock, or other dangerous things like Acid Armor / Baton Pass Vaporeon and Swords Dance / Agility Scizor. Haze and Mud-Slap/Icy Wind don't really conflict, because I usually use one or the other (and having to use Haze is quite rare anyway). Damp is useful as usual.
Hariyama @ Lum Berry
Ability: Thick Fat
EVs: 4 HP / 4 Atk / 68 Def / 180 SpD / 252 Spe
Careful/Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Knock Off
- Sand-Attack
- Foresight
- Body Slam / Secret Power / Rock Tomb
Hariyama is a second crippler. It also survives the aforementioned attacks and can use "backup" Knock Off if Poliwrath got owned by a Quick Claw crit Psychic, for example. Sand-Attack hits everything without Clear Body, and Hariyama outspeeds the 172 tier after Icy Wind. Foresight is not really for Ghost-types, but rather to prevent Medicham getting haxed by opposing Double Team users.
Finally, the last move is up to preference. Body Slam is the strongest paralysis-inducing move, which is good against Metagross / Clear Body Pokémon if you want to setup with at least one Bulk Up with Medicham. On the other hand, Rock Tomb has more chance to reduce the Speed of non-Clear Body Pokémon, namely 80% chance, but it doesn't "stack" as well on top of Accuracy drops as paralysis. Secret Power is an option with less power than Body Slam should the opponent be killed too easily by Body Slam. In general, whether to use Careful with 31 Atk IVs or Calm with 0 Atk IVs is an interesting choice, because the latter eases setup, while the first gives Hariyama the best chance to win if Medicham fails somehow.
Medicham @ Salac Berry
Ability: Pure Power
EVs: 12 HP / 252 Atk / 244 Spe
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SpA)
- Substitute
- Bulk Up
- Reversal
- Shadow Ball
The best Reversal user because it already OHKOs so many Pokémon WITHOUT boosting its Attack (e.g. Metagross and Charizard), and doesn't need to run a specific Hidden Power or something independable like Megahorn to fight Ghost-types and Psychics. After one Bulk Up, Reversal even OHKOs most Pokémon that RESIST it and at +2 / + 3 it's game over for them. This is why the rest of the team focuses on Accuracy dropping so much; even one extra turn to use Bulk Up means I probably win already. But even without a Bulk Up, Medicham has a decent chance of sweeping. It prefers having a Substitute up before killing the lead; you can always get down later safely against speedier opponents, and Bulk-upped Shadow Ball is already a great move to sweep with. Reversal has 80 power after three Substitutes, so it's already stronger than a Brick Break there.
This team is STRONG, but it has one big problem: Aerial Ace. My current strategy against that is to simply reduce its user's HP with Hariyama and Poliwrath to a point where Medicham kills it at +0 and hope for the best. Replacing Hariyama with a Sub/Spore/Flash/Charm Breloom would solve this problem and generally greatly improve the team (at -6 Atk and shifting Medicham's leftover 12 EVs to Defense, Medicham's Substitute tanks most Aerial Aces), but I'm convinced I really need Breloom on the Grass-team.
Another replacement for Hariyama is Hitmontop, because it could repeatedly switch back to Poliwrath in order to get in as many Intimidates as possible. It also gets Thief and Mud-Slap, although Sand-Attack and Foresight would be missed. A last option I thought about was a Baton Pass / Flash / Reflect / Substitute Meditite @ Ganlon Berry (who funnily outspeeds Crobat and survives even Aero's CB AA with a Reflect up), but this still doesn't give Medicham enough Defense to tank Aerial Aces.
That's it for today! Going to brainstorm about improving the now-underwhelming Mono Ground team during a walk in the forest.
I almost forgot - the sample streak is online!
I was pretty concerned about making a decent team with Fighting-types, because there's very little one can do to tank strong STAB Psychics and stuff like CB Aerial Ace from Aerodactyl, DDMence, Crobat, etc. Offensively, there are many options: Reversal sweeping, Endeavor + Mach Punch Hitmontop, Blaze/Reversal, Bulk Up, Swords Dance, Belly Drum, and nearly every Fighting-type packs a good Attack stat. Some useful support moves are available as well: Screens, priority moves, Knock Off/Thief, Sand Attack, Mud-Slap, etc.
Before making my first attempt, I figured my lead should be able to either win or setup agains the likes of Lati@s, other powerful Psychic-types and DDMence. This had me use a Hitmontop who, after Intimidate, is (also Specially) bulky enough to survive anything they throw at me on turn 1 and support the rest of the team with Intimidate as well. As a backup, I used a Choice Bander to finish off Endeavor fodder, and a Pokémon that is able to setup against less offensive opponents. This resulted in the following, unoptimized team:
Hitmontop @ Salac Berry
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 220 HP / 4 Atk / 4 Def / 132 SpD / 148 Spe
Careful Nature (+SpD, -SpA)
- Substitute
- Endeavor
- Mach Punch
- Hidden Power [Ghost] / Toxic / Double Team / Bulk Up
This Hitmontop LOVES faster opponents, because they never OHKO without crits or OHKO moves. It then makes a Sub, enters Salac Berry, uses the now-faster Endeavor and finishes them with Mach Punch. Against stronger Psychics that can't use Calm Mind, it uses Endeavor on turn 1 because it won't have enough HP left for a Substitute. If they can Calm Mind, however, like Espeon, use Substitute anyway. If they use Calm Mind, I'll destroy them eventually after slow-subbing down and if they use Psychic, I can at least try to kill them and if they survive the following Mach Punch, Medicham uses Fake Out on them. Same story with Salamence; always use Substitute. If they don't attack me, they're dead.
If everything goes well, this Hitmontop beats their lead and reduces their second Pokémon to finishing material with Endeavor. The filler move greatly affects the game: HP[Ghost] lets it beat Gengar (2HKOs), Toxic gives me something to do against slower opponents that don't break the sub or setup (Wailord, etc), Double Team can let Hitmontop cheese through their whole team when given the time to setup, and Bulk Up is good against physical opponents who won't break its sub after a while; giving Hitmontop a chance to Fight the second or third Pokémon as well. A +6 Mach Punch 2HKOs many Pokémon.
Hitmontop hits 109 Speed to outrun Gengar/Espeon after Salac Berry, and is still slow enough for most threatening opponents. Sadly, Salac Berry is needed even with Mach Punch, because otherwise it won't be able to dent the second Pokémon.
Medicham @ Choice Band
Ability: Pure Power
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -Spe)
- Brick Break
- Shadow Ball
- Fake Out
- Rock Slide / Hyper Beam
Medicham OHKOs many Pokémon in the tower right off the bat. Fake Out ends those second Pokémon that just took an Endeavor if they're faster than Medicham. While Rock Slide is handy against Flying-types and such, Hyper Beam is just as powerful as a super-effective Rock Slide and gets stuff like Nidoqueen/king too. This is the main Gengar "counter" if Hitmontop doesn't run HP[Ghost]
Machamp @ Chesto Berry
Ability: Guts
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpD / 4 Spe
Careful Nature (+SpD, -SpA)
- Bulk Up
- Light Screen
- Vital Throw / Revenge
- Rest
Finally, a slow setup Pokémon against opponents Hitmontop outspeeds already. Light Screen makes it surprisingly bulky, and Bulk Up + Vital Throw/Revenge is pretty scary. Vital Throw never misses, but Revenge is almost twice as strong if they attack me.
Even though this team is awesome to play with and certainly more dynamic than my standard crippling strategies, it can't really handle anything that doesn't go according to plan, i.e. Quick Claw Psychics from Slowking/bro. Machamp's slowness and relatively long setup time makes it vulnerable to crithax or other things like Confusion hax, and very often I found myself banking on whether Medicham can take on their last Pokémon without switching moves. Even though I have considerable knowledge of Frontier sets and played pretty well in general, the team struggles to get through a streak. I had to face it: this kind of team sucks, as much as I wanted to make this Hitmontop work. I tried other stuff as well: Light Screen "special tank" Medicham with BrBr/ShBa/LiSc/Recover, Sleep Talk / Bulk Up Heracross for the last spot, Agility/Liechi Hitmonchan, you name it, but nothing really worked.
Eventually, I realized Belly Drum Poliwrath couldn't be setup reliably enough as well, so I ended up optimizing a Reversal Medicham strategy.
Mono Fighting
Poliwrath @ [No Item]
Ability: Damp
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 4 SpA / 44 SpD / 204 Spe
Calm Nature (+SpD, -Atk)
- Thief
- Icy Wind
- Mud-Slap
- Haze
Remember Politoed on Mono Water, anyone? This is pretty much the exact same set (with Haze over Perish Song), with an additional Psychic/Flying weakness. Poliwrath lives all unboosted Attacks (even Alakazam's Psychic and CB Aero Aerial Ace / Dodrio Drill Peck) and outspeeds everything but Crobat/Jolteon after Icy Wind. It Thiefs away Quick Claw (getting Brightpowder/Focus Band is nice as well), reduces accuracy of non-Ground-immune Pokémon with Mud-Slap and Hazes away either Curse boosts from Registeel and Regirock, or other dangerous things like Acid Armor / Baton Pass Vaporeon and Swords Dance / Agility Scizor. Haze and Mud-Slap/Icy Wind don't really conflict, because I usually use one or the other (and having to use Haze is quite rare anyway). Damp is useful as usual.
Hariyama @ Lum Berry
Ability: Thick Fat
EVs: 4 HP / 4 Atk / 68 Def / 180 SpD / 252 Spe
Careful/Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Knock Off
- Sand-Attack
- Foresight
- Body Slam / Secret Power / Rock Tomb
Hariyama is a second crippler. It also survives the aforementioned attacks and can use "backup" Knock Off if Poliwrath got owned by a Quick Claw crit Psychic, for example. Sand-Attack hits everything without Clear Body, and Hariyama outspeeds the 172 tier after Icy Wind. Foresight is not really for Ghost-types, but rather to prevent Medicham getting haxed by opposing Double Team users.
Finally, the last move is up to preference. Body Slam is the strongest paralysis-inducing move, which is good against Metagross / Clear Body Pokémon if you want to setup with at least one Bulk Up with Medicham. On the other hand, Rock Tomb has more chance to reduce the Speed of non-Clear Body Pokémon, namely 80% chance, but it doesn't "stack" as well on top of Accuracy drops as paralysis. Secret Power is an option with less power than Body Slam should the opponent be killed too easily by Body Slam. In general, whether to use Careful with 31 Atk IVs or Calm with 0 Atk IVs is an interesting choice, because the latter eases setup, while the first gives Hariyama the best chance to win if Medicham fails somehow.
Medicham @ Salac Berry
Ability: Pure Power
EVs: 12 HP / 252 Atk / 244 Spe
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SpA)
- Substitute
- Bulk Up
- Reversal
- Shadow Ball
The best Reversal user because it already OHKOs so many Pokémon WITHOUT boosting its Attack (e.g. Metagross and Charizard), and doesn't need to run a specific Hidden Power or something independable like Megahorn to fight Ghost-types and Psychics. After one Bulk Up, Reversal even OHKOs most Pokémon that RESIST it and at +2 / + 3 it's game over for them. This is why the rest of the team focuses on Accuracy dropping so much; even one extra turn to use Bulk Up means I probably win already. But even without a Bulk Up, Medicham has a decent chance of sweeping. It prefers having a Substitute up before killing the lead; you can always get down later safely against speedier opponents, and Bulk-upped Shadow Ball is already a great move to sweep with. Reversal has 80 power after three Substitutes, so it's already stronger than a Brick Break there.
This team is STRONG, but it has one big problem: Aerial Ace. My current strategy against that is to simply reduce its user's HP with Hariyama and Poliwrath to a point where Medicham kills it at +0 and hope for the best. Replacing Hariyama with a Sub/Spore/Flash/Charm Breloom would solve this problem and generally greatly improve the team (at -6 Atk and shifting Medicham's leftover 12 EVs to Defense, Medicham's Substitute tanks most Aerial Aces), but I'm convinced I really need Breloom on the Grass-team.
Another replacement for Hariyama is Hitmontop, because it could repeatedly switch back to Poliwrath in order to get in as many Intimidates as possible. It also gets Thief and Mud-Slap, although Sand-Attack and Foresight would be missed. A last option I thought about was a Baton Pass / Flash / Reflect / Substitute Meditite @ Ganlon Berry (who funnily outspeeds Crobat and survives even Aero's CB AA with a Reflect up), but this still doesn't give Medicham enough Defense to tank Aerial Aces.
That's it for today! Going to brainstorm about improving the now-underwhelming Mono Ground team during a walk in the forest.
I almost forgot - the sample streak is online!
After numerous switches between two entirely different team archetypes (still with two Pokémon overlap), I've finally cut the knot about mono Ground. So this is the penultimate Monotype, number sixteen.
Remarkably, Ground-type Pokémon lack good setuppers: Curse Quagsire is OK but hasn't got the SpDef to back it up nor many situations where it can setup, Swords Dance Rhydon doesn't even outspeed the neutral 100 bs tier after Salac Berry, Marowak is slow and needs Thick Club, and SD Sandslash seemed underwhelming too at first glance. For this reason, my initial idea of tackling Mono Ground was actually making a solid, allround team, dismissing the CGS idea for a moment and making use of the decent bulk available.
Type-synergetically, such a team would definitely need Water Absorb Quagsire (which is why I used Swampert on the Water-type team without being worried), since that's the only Ground-type capable of countering other Water-types. Its Grass-type weakness can be intercepted by Flygon, Camerupt, a Nido or Steelix, and since I needed a Pokémon with EQ resistance/immunity, I chose Flygon because it's better than Gligar in general, and I might need Gligar for the last team (mono Flying). To round things out, Steelix was chosen as it walls Psychic-types and Snorlax pretty well, has Sturdy and could potentially provide a panic button with Explosion. Then, after a BUNCH of test runs and altering movesets, I think the following is optimal, or very close, for this archetype:
Flygon @ Choice Band
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 36 HP / 252 Atk / 228 Spe
Jolly Nature (+Spe, -SpA)
IVs: 30 Def / 30 SpD
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- Hidden Power [Ghost]
- Aerial Ace As Latios777 pointed out, Aerial Ace is not available, so Quick Attack is best here. I intentionally left the description below unaltered.
OHKO's scary stuff like Metagross and Rhydon (nearly always) and wins against other dangerous QC stuff like Regirock too. Rock Slide removes legendary birds from the field, HP[Ghost] OHKOes Gengar (whom I outspeed) and dents Lati@s enough for Steelix to finish them off, or prefereably vice versa. Aerial Ace OHKOes Breloom and Heracross, and also serves as a Double Team counter together with Screech on Steelix. In general, it OHKOs nearly everything after a Screech.
This Flygon can also switch into Resting opponents, which Quagsire invites them to do with Toxic.
Quagsire @ Leftovers
Ability: Water Absorb
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Careful Nature (+SpD, -SpA)
- Toxic
- Protect
- Curse
- Earthquake
Most of the time, Flygon switches into Quagsire if it can't OHKO the opponent. Walls all Water-types and sets up on them while stalling with Protect in order to keep high health. The AI is sometimes stupid enough to attack Quagsire (repeatedly) with Water-type moves too. Also provides good switching synergy with Steelix, making full use of Water Absorb. Curse + EQ defeats other Curse users such as Registeel, but not Snorlax. Fortunately, Steelix takes care of that.
Steelix @ Chesto Berry
Ability: Sturdy
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 248 SpD / 4 Spe
Careful Nature (+SpD, -SpA)
- Screech
- Hidden Power [Steel]
- Explosion
- Rest
Screech + Explosion prevents Curselax from becoming a problem, HP[Steel] slowly beats opponents Steelix walls, such as Dodrio and Lati@s, and becomes strong after a Screech. Screech also helps Flygon when it can switch in, and Explosion is the safest option against lead Salamence, for example, as a Rock Slide miss from Flygon (or an AA crit after a DD) could easily let Salamence sweep through my team. Because it has to fulfill all these "problem-solving" roles, I couldn't afford to run a Torment set.
The first attempt had decent results, and it surprised me how many trainers were just 3/4-shot by Earthquake, especially the Ruin Maniacs that usually give me problems (Metagross, Regis, bulky Quick Clawers). Things went well, but EndureSalac stuff is problematic (including Quick Attack on Flygon's moveset creates even more other problems), one crit or freeze when Quagsire switches in is terrible, Screech misses alot when I can't have it miss, and Steelix without Torment is pretty disappointing in general, but I really need its current moveset.
I tried to alter the team and experimented with Camerupt (Amnesia/Explosion/Fire move/EQ), Perish Song Marowak (combined with Block Steelix, to counter Lax as well), and Yawn Quagsire, but none of them really impressed me. I decided to save this team, and make a CGS attempt, even though I don't like the sweepers AND I don't like the cripplers in mono Ground. Still, the final result surpassed my expectations, and in the end it doesn't even deviate that much from Attempt #1. I had to tweak it for two days though, before it was done 'teething'.
Mono Ground
Creating a CGS team with Ground-types started with the observation that Sandslash has to be the sweeper, because Quagsire is needed for setting up anything. Also, Quagsire would need to setup with Curse, leaving it vulnerable to Special Attacks because it has to sweep slowly. So that's an easy decision. Sandslash is fast enough to outrun the 182 tier after Salac Berry, but needs Accuracy reduction combined with either paralysis (Thunder Wave and Stun Spore aren't available) or sleep, AND it needs to be faster than the opponent during setup.
This had me use Nidoqueen with Icy Wind and Thief as a lead and Quagsire as a Yawn + Flash staller. Nidoqueen's vulnerability to super-effective attacks that crit too often, together with its Poison Heal ability that works AGAINST me makes it pretty bad though. Then I searched for Ground-types that learn Sand-Attack and came to Dugtrio, Flygon, Marowak and Sandslash, lol. Flygon seemed the best, as I learned how it synergizes with Quagsire from the previous team already.
Flygon @ Choice Band
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 36 HP / 252 Atk / 228 Spe
Jolly Nature (+Spe, -SpA)
IVs: 30 Def / 30 SpD
- Sand-Attack
- Rock Tomb
- Earthquake
- Hidden Power [Ghost]
Flygon used to be a much bulkier, non-Choice Bander with Earthquake, Flamethrower, Sand-Attack and Rock Tomb, so I could start Sand-Attacking after using Rock Tomb and it worked greatly with the following Quagsire. It was also able to 2HKO most threatening Quick Clawers like Metagross and used Flamethrower to 3HKO Skarmory, a threat because it potentially has Keen Eye. It was a great success, actually, until I encountered Gardevoir 630, who utterly destroys my whole team with Ice Punch and Magical Leaf. I simply couldn't do anything to prevent this, so I changed Flygon back to a Choice Bander and put back HP[Ghost] to OHKO it without a crit 15/16 of the time. Note that I can't use EQ against it because it might have Trace. Threatening Grass/Ice coverage is only found on Gardevoir (Gengar has no set with Giga Drain and Ice Punch, although I'd OHKO that too with this Flygon).
The obligatory Choice Band has other uses too, but at the cost of utility. It provides good finishing offense if Sandslash gets trumped (e.g. against Brightpowder stuff such as Anabel's Latios), and can make use of Yawn much better if I can't setup Sandslash for another reason. It can 3HKO Curselax at +1, for example.
So how do I handle Skarm now? The only way I can beat it is to hard-stall it out until it's no longer a threat to Sandslash. This isn't so hard actually - CurseSkarm's Fly can be Protected against, and after reducing its Speed, Quagsire can use a Sub to block Toxic.
Quagsire @ Leftovers
Ability: Water Absorb
EVs: 172 HP / 4 Def / 100 SpD / 232 Spe
Timid Nature (+Spe, -Atk)
- Yawn
- Protect
- Substitute
- Flash
With Choice Band, some weight is added to Quagsire's shoulders, because it now might have to setup against an opponent that has no Accuracy drops yet. This Quagsire outspeeds everything but Timid Jolteon after two Rock Tombs, although one is usually enough; its strategy works perfectly if it's slower, too. The main reason for all the Speed IVs is to outspeeds the bulky water QC OHKO'ers Flygon prefers to switch out of, e.g. Walrein. But outspeeding stuff like Breloom and Lati@s when they're at -1 is very welcome too, of course.
So how does this set work? Basically, I use Yawn (which remarkably has perfect accuracy) after a first 'scout' Protect to steal a PP in the process, then Protect to let them fall asleep, then Substitute, and one Flash. Then if I'm slower, I start Yawning BEFORE they wake up so they only break my Sub, and repeat this process. This way I preserve way more health, and stall more PP before their Accuracy is above -3. At -3 Accuracy, I can start playing some riskier because they'll occasionally miss anyway. When a Sub is still up, you can change between Protect and Yawn after two Flashes, for example.
EV-wise, 172 HP EVs give 192 HP, which is 0 mod 16. I don't need to have one more, because I never Sub + Protect all the way down anyway. The Special Defense EVs allow Quagsire to survive two Psychics from Alakazam (the strongest one) after Protect and Leftovers, while having enough HP to also live really strong physical attacks.
There's room to play with having less Speed (86 is the minimum) for more bulk, but so far I haven't seen important checks between the bulk it has now and it would have then. Also, Damp is a decent alternative to Water Absorb; I honestly don't know which one is more important, but I've seen many Explosions miss anyway, or end up against a Sub. Then I have to start crippling again or simply sweep without setting up Sandslash because they only have 2 Pokémon left, so it's wise to keep Flygon alive if possible.
Sandslash @ Salac Berry
Ability: Sand Veil
EVs: 196 HP / 96 Atk / 216 Spe
Jolly Nature (+Spe, -SpA)
IVs: 30 Def / 30 SpD / 30 Spe
- Swords Dance
- Substitute
- Earthquake
- Hidden Power [Rock]
The sweeper of the team, and I have to say I underestimated it at first glance. 100 BS STAB EQ is nothing to scoff at; it's almost as strong as Tauros' Return, and this Sandslash can usually set up against opponent that just entered their first sleep turn with -6 Accuracy and -1 Speed if needed. Because it gets to +6 Atk so quickly and easily in most matches, I can afford to run more bulk. This bulk is mainly for Gardevoir 630, whose Ice Punch I now survive. I invested in HP instead of (the cheaper) Special Defense, because that allows its Substitutes to tank most Aerial Aces too(Sandslash has really good base Defense), and makes it survive some QC assaults when it's at half HP or so.
Slow opponents get maimed by EQ and against faster opponents I 'slow-sub' down like Medicham does on the Fighting-type team. Salac Berry lets Sandslash outrun everything, and 123 Speeds all Metagross without a boost. Watch out though -- this team can't remove Quick Claws.
A Sample Streak will be available soon, and let me know what you think!
EDIT: Now available! I had a very dangerous scenario against Gardevoir, after killing the first Pokémon with Flygon. Note that the team still wins against Anabel if HP[Rock] fails to hit twice against Latios; Flygon then finishes with HP[Ghost] and Quagsire has good chance of stalling out Snorlax out of PP. It then dies to Struggle damage + Sleep + CB Earthquake(s).
Remarkably, Ground-type Pokémon lack good setuppers: Curse Quagsire is OK but hasn't got the SpDef to back it up nor many situations where it can setup, Swords Dance Rhydon doesn't even outspeed the neutral 100 bs tier after Salac Berry, Marowak is slow and needs Thick Club, and SD Sandslash seemed underwhelming too at first glance. For this reason, my initial idea of tackling Mono Ground was actually making a solid, allround team, dismissing the CGS idea for a moment and making use of the decent bulk available.
Type-synergetically, such a team would definitely need Water Absorb Quagsire (which is why I used Swampert on the Water-type team without being worried), since that's the only Ground-type capable of countering other Water-types. Its Grass-type weakness can be intercepted by Flygon, Camerupt, a Nido or Steelix, and since I needed a Pokémon with EQ resistance/immunity, I chose Flygon because it's better than Gligar in general, and I might need Gligar for the last team (mono Flying). To round things out, Steelix was chosen as it walls Psychic-types and Snorlax pretty well, has Sturdy and could potentially provide a panic button with Explosion. Then, after a BUNCH of test runs and altering movesets, I think the following is optimal, or very close, for this archetype:
Flygon @ Choice Band
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 36 HP / 252 Atk / 228 Spe
Jolly Nature (+Spe, -SpA)
IVs: 30 Def / 30 SpD
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- Hidden Power [Ghost]
- Aerial Ace As Latios777 pointed out, Aerial Ace is not available, so Quick Attack is best here. I intentionally left the description below unaltered.
OHKO's scary stuff like Metagross and Rhydon (nearly always) and wins against other dangerous QC stuff like Regirock too. Rock Slide removes legendary birds from the field, HP[Ghost] OHKOes Gengar (whom I outspeed) and dents Lati@s enough for Steelix to finish them off, or prefereably vice versa. Aerial Ace OHKOes Breloom and Heracross, and also serves as a Double Team counter together with Screech on Steelix. In general, it OHKOs nearly everything after a Screech.
This Flygon can also switch into Resting opponents, which Quagsire invites them to do with Toxic.
Quagsire @ Leftovers
Ability: Water Absorb
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Careful Nature (+SpD, -SpA)
- Toxic
- Protect
- Curse
- Earthquake
Most of the time, Flygon switches into Quagsire if it can't OHKO the opponent. Walls all Water-types and sets up on them while stalling with Protect in order to keep high health. The AI is sometimes stupid enough to attack Quagsire (repeatedly) with Water-type moves too. Also provides good switching synergy with Steelix, making full use of Water Absorb. Curse + EQ defeats other Curse users such as Registeel, but not Snorlax. Fortunately, Steelix takes care of that.
Steelix @ Chesto Berry
Ability: Sturdy
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 248 SpD / 4 Spe
Careful Nature (+SpD, -SpA)
- Screech
- Hidden Power [Steel]
- Explosion
- Rest
Screech + Explosion prevents Curselax from becoming a problem, HP[Steel] slowly beats opponents Steelix walls, such as Dodrio and Lati@s, and becomes strong after a Screech. Screech also helps Flygon when it can switch in, and Explosion is the safest option against lead Salamence, for example, as a Rock Slide miss from Flygon (or an AA crit after a DD) could easily let Salamence sweep through my team. Because it has to fulfill all these "problem-solving" roles, I couldn't afford to run a Torment set.
The first attempt had decent results, and it surprised me how many trainers were just 3/4-shot by Earthquake, especially the Ruin Maniacs that usually give me problems (Metagross, Regis, bulky Quick Clawers). Things went well, but EndureSalac stuff is problematic (including Quick Attack on Flygon's moveset creates even more other problems), one crit or freeze when Quagsire switches in is terrible, Screech misses alot when I can't have it miss, and Steelix without Torment is pretty disappointing in general, but I really need its current moveset.
I tried to alter the team and experimented with Camerupt (Amnesia/Explosion/Fire move/EQ), Perish Song Marowak (combined with Block Steelix, to counter Lax as well), and Yawn Quagsire, but none of them really impressed me. I decided to save this team, and make a CGS attempt, even though I don't like the sweepers AND I don't like the cripplers in mono Ground. Still, the final result surpassed my expectations, and in the end it doesn't even deviate that much from Attempt #1. I had to tweak it for two days though, before it was done 'teething'.
Mono Ground
Creating a CGS team with Ground-types started with the observation that Sandslash has to be the sweeper, because Quagsire is needed for setting up anything. Also, Quagsire would need to setup with Curse, leaving it vulnerable to Special Attacks because it has to sweep slowly. So that's an easy decision. Sandslash is fast enough to outrun the 182 tier after Salac Berry, but needs Accuracy reduction combined with either paralysis (Thunder Wave and Stun Spore aren't available) or sleep, AND it needs to be faster than the opponent during setup.
This had me use Nidoqueen with Icy Wind and Thief as a lead and Quagsire as a Yawn + Flash staller. Nidoqueen's vulnerability to super-effective attacks that crit too often, together with its Poison Heal ability that works AGAINST me makes it pretty bad though. Then I searched for Ground-types that learn Sand-Attack and came to Dugtrio, Flygon, Marowak and Sandslash, lol. Flygon seemed the best, as I learned how it synergizes with Quagsire from the previous team already.
Flygon @ Choice Band
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 36 HP / 252 Atk / 228 Spe
Jolly Nature (+Spe, -SpA)
IVs: 30 Def / 30 SpD
- Sand-Attack
- Rock Tomb
- Earthquake
- Hidden Power [Ghost]
Flygon used to be a much bulkier, non-Choice Bander with Earthquake, Flamethrower, Sand-Attack and Rock Tomb, so I could start Sand-Attacking after using Rock Tomb and it worked greatly with the following Quagsire. It was also able to 2HKO most threatening Quick Clawers like Metagross and used Flamethrower to 3HKO Skarmory, a threat because it potentially has Keen Eye. It was a great success, actually, until I encountered Gardevoir 630, who utterly destroys my whole team with Ice Punch and Magical Leaf. I simply couldn't do anything to prevent this, so I changed Flygon back to a Choice Bander and put back HP[Ghost] to OHKO it without a crit 15/16 of the time. Note that I can't use EQ against it because it might have Trace. Threatening Grass/Ice coverage is only found on Gardevoir (Gengar has no set with Giga Drain and Ice Punch, although I'd OHKO that too with this Flygon).
The obligatory Choice Band has other uses too, but at the cost of utility. It provides good finishing offense if Sandslash gets trumped (e.g. against Brightpowder stuff such as Anabel's Latios), and can make use of Yawn much better if I can't setup Sandslash for another reason. It can 3HKO Curselax at +1, for example.
So how do I handle Skarm now? The only way I can beat it is to hard-stall it out until it's no longer a threat to Sandslash. This isn't so hard actually - CurseSkarm's Fly can be Protected against, and after reducing its Speed, Quagsire can use a Sub to block Toxic.
Quagsire @ Leftovers
Ability: Water Absorb
EVs: 172 HP / 4 Def / 100 SpD / 232 Spe
Timid Nature (+Spe, -Atk)
- Yawn
- Protect
- Substitute
- Flash
With Choice Band, some weight is added to Quagsire's shoulders, because it now might have to setup against an opponent that has no Accuracy drops yet. This Quagsire outspeeds everything but Timid Jolteon after two Rock Tombs, although one is usually enough; its strategy works perfectly if it's slower, too. The main reason for all the Speed IVs is to outspeeds the bulky water QC OHKO'ers Flygon prefers to switch out of, e.g. Walrein. But outspeeding stuff like Breloom and Lati@s when they're at -1 is very welcome too, of course.
So how does this set work? Basically, I use Yawn (which remarkably has perfect accuracy) after a first 'scout' Protect to steal a PP in the process, then Protect to let them fall asleep, then Substitute, and one Flash. Then if I'm slower, I start Yawning BEFORE they wake up so they only break my Sub, and repeat this process. This way I preserve way more health, and stall more PP before their Accuracy is above -3. At -3 Accuracy, I can start playing some riskier because they'll occasionally miss anyway. When a Sub is still up, you can change between Protect and Yawn after two Flashes, for example.
EV-wise, 172 HP EVs give 192 HP, which is 0 mod 16. I don't need to have one more, because I never Sub + Protect all the way down anyway. The Special Defense EVs allow Quagsire to survive two Psychics from Alakazam (the strongest one) after Protect and Leftovers, while having enough HP to also live really strong physical attacks.
There's room to play with having less Speed (86 is the minimum) for more bulk, but so far I haven't seen important checks between the bulk it has now and it would have then. Also, Damp is a decent alternative to Water Absorb; I honestly don't know which one is more important, but I've seen many Explosions miss anyway, or end up against a Sub. Then I have to start crippling again or simply sweep without setting up Sandslash because they only have 2 Pokémon left, so it's wise to keep Flygon alive if possible.
Sandslash @ Salac Berry
Ability: Sand Veil
EVs: 196 HP / 96 Atk / 216 Spe
Jolly Nature (+Spe, -SpA)
IVs: 30 Def / 30 SpD / 30 Spe
- Swords Dance
- Substitute
- Earthquake
- Hidden Power [Rock]
The sweeper of the team, and I have to say I underestimated it at first glance. 100 BS STAB EQ is nothing to scoff at; it's almost as strong as Tauros' Return, and this Sandslash can usually set up against opponent that just entered their first sleep turn with -6 Accuracy and -1 Speed if needed. Because it gets to +6 Atk so quickly and easily in most matches, I can afford to run more bulk. This bulk is mainly for Gardevoir 630, whose Ice Punch I now survive. I invested in HP instead of (the cheaper) Special Defense, because that allows its Substitutes to tank most Aerial Aces too(Sandslash has really good base Defense), and makes it survive some QC assaults when it's at half HP or so.
Slow opponents get maimed by EQ and against faster opponents I 'slow-sub' down like Medicham does on the Fighting-type team. Salac Berry lets Sandslash outrun everything, and 123 Speeds all Metagross without a boost. Watch out though -- this team can't remove Quick Claws.
A Sample Streak will be available soon, and let me know what you think!
EDIT: Now available! I had a very dangerous scenario against Gardevoir, after killing the first Pokémon with Flygon. Note that the team still wins against Anabel if HP[Rock] fails to hit twice against Latios; Flygon then finishes with HP[Ghost] and Quagsire has good chance of stalling out Snorlax out of PP. It then dies to Struggle damage + Sleep + CB Earthquake(s).
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