Hook, Line, and Sinker! Trick Traps and Shadow Tag!

[Tendie]

The Concept: Use deception and baiting to lure opponents into being choice locked to the immunities of Chandelure / Dugtrio, so the Shadow Tagger / Arena Trapper has free reign to buff to hell and back. Failing this, the team is designed to choice lock key Pokemon to cripple the opponent in such a way as to take a significant advantage.

The Design
The party works in two teams of three; one team for Chandelure, and one team for Dugtrio. Each team has 3 distinct roles, which are as follows:

The Bait

The Bait (Gyarados) (M) @ Leftovers
Trait: Moxie
EVs: 156 HP / 72 Atk / 96 Def / 184 Spd
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Dragon Dance
- Waterfall
- Taunt
- Bounce

The Bait (Aggron) (M) @ Life Orb
Trait: Rock Head
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature (+Spd, -SAtk)
- Head Smash
- Stealth Rock
- Ice Punch
- Fire Punch


The first goal of each team of three is to lure out the moves that their respective team member is immune to. That meant I needed a Pokémon famous for its Thunder weakness and a Pokémon famous for its Fighting weakness. On the weak-to-thunder side of things I choose Gyarados. Not only does Gyarados attract thunderbolts like a lightning rod, he also is a great addition to any team and packs quite a punch. I choose to use the Bulky Dragon Dance set on him, as dragon dance really can’t be left unpunished for long and taunt will take away any choice they have other than to try and KO him. For Chandelure’s team, I chose Aggron. I picked him for the exact reasons nobody else does: his glaring and crippling weaknesses. Almost every team packs earthquake or one of the many powerful fighting moves.

The Net

The Net (Starmie) @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Naive Nature (+Spd, -SDef)
- Grass Knot
- Hydro Pump
- Thunderbolt
- Trick

The Net (Linoone) (F) @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Gluttony
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature (+Spd, -SAtk)
- Switcheroo
- ExtremeSpeed
- Belly Drum
- Shadow Claw


These lucky guys got picked to fill the role of The Net. The Net’s job is to come in after the Bait faints and trick the target Pokémon before dying. Thus the Nets have to be fast, have the same weakness as the Bait did, and have access to Trick/Switcheroo. For Dugtrio, I chose Starmie. Starmie is incredibly fast, especially with the boost from the initial Choice Scarf. It also is known to be slightly weak, further encouraging the opponent to use thunderbolt again. It took a while for me to land on Linoone as the perfect candidate for the Chandelure team, but now I can see how the team ever worked without her. Linoone has all the advantages of Starmie, but the belly drum set means she can also serve as a sweeper if she tricks the opponent into setting up spikes or buffing, thereby getting that free turn to belly drum it up. Although Linoone is only hit for neutral damage against Ground moves, the opponent knows Linoone to be too frail to survive an Earthquake anyway, meaning she also effectively serves in this regard.

The Sting

The Sting (Dugtrio) (F) @ Leftovers
Trait: Arena Trap
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature (+Spd, -SAtk)
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge
- Substitute
- Hone Claws

The Sting (Chandelure) (M) @ Air Balloon
Trait: Shadow Tag
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Flamethrower
- Calm Mind
- Substitute
- Hidden Power [Dragon]

Once you get to this point, it’s fairly easy flying. +6 100% accuracy Edgequake from Dugtrio and +6 HP Dragon from Chandelure. HP Dragon serves two purposes: firstly it gets great coverage, and secondly it means the opponent doesn’t know what to send out. The main goal of these two is to at least break even before being stopped, and this is handily accomplished by both parties thanks to substitute.

 

[Captain Dragan]

Whoa i love this idea. never thought of it. I'm a bit confused though, how it works. Do you play in the manner of send out bait, then i send out one of the respective trappers with each single poke they send out? and when both baits are dead, you use your nets as secondary baits?
Oh and, isn't it maybe smarter to put Fire Blast or Flamethrower on Chandelure instead of Acid armor? Of course i understand the reason for acid armor, it's to make you bulky on both sides, but with a fire-type move you get to hit the only type resisting HP Dragon: Steel. Just consider that, it would seem like a smart move imo.
And i do understand the Air Balloon on Chandelure, but not on Dugtrio. Seems like a smarter move to me to stick leftovers on him, to get the hp lost from Sub back pretty quickly.

Overall, seems like a solid team, as there are no shared weaknesses, apart from the baits/nets, but that's obviously part of the strategy. Cool idea.

Cap'n

 

[Tendie]

Thanks for the compliments and advice! I think I address all your points below:

Do you play in the manner of send out bait, then i send out one of the respective trappers with each single poke they send out? and when both baits are dead, you use your nets as secondary baits?

I think you've got the idea, yeah! Ideally, with some prediction, you can swap out your Bait for the Net on the same turn they switch to their counter to the bait, thus saving the Bait to be used at a later time, whilst still letting the Trap go through.

isn't it maybe smarter to put Fire Blast or Flamethrower on Chandelure instead of Acid armor?

Acid armor serves 2 purposes on this set. 1 is of course to make Chandelure incredibly bulky, and the other is to buy time. Many of the fighting moves Pokemon are packing these days have 8 PP. A maximum of 2 is usually spent against The Bait and The Net, leaving the trapped foe with 6/8 pp on, say, Close Combat. That gives Chandelure 6 turns in which to boost up before beginning to take damage. With CM and Sub, the turns you need to set up is 7. On that 7th turn, I've found that some struggles will break down the substitute, which is kind of annoying. With Acid armor, The Substitute will stand against the 4 struggles very soundly. 4 Struggles + 6 Close Combats is 10 turns, and 3 Acid Armors, 1 Sub, and 6 Calm Minds is also 10 turns, giving you just enough time to get all buffed up. Also I've found that few steels actually pose a problem if they take more than one hit to KO, because they really cant do much in return. The two that can cause the most problems are Skarmory and Jirachi. Skarmory often has whirlwind, which is a pain, and Jirachi can abuse serene grace like it's going out of style. I make a point to neutralizing these threats early if I can before going into trap mode.

not on Dugtrio. Seems like a smarter move to me to stick leftovers on him

I gave dugtrio baloon to account for Sandstorm, what with the prevalent ground moves on such teams. But I'm beginning to notice sandstorm less and less, to the point that you very well may be right. I will try leftovers out on Dugtrio and see how he fares. Thanks for the tip!

 

[Captain Dragan]

you're welcome, cheers

 

[That Noob]

This is a very unique idea and I see it working very well. However, a few suggestions.
On Chandelure, replace Acid Armor with Flamethrower. As you mentioned 2 struggles may break the sub, but simply sub up again; you'll still have half your hp left. HP Dragon may have excellent coverage, but +6 STABed Flamethrower annihilates everything that doesn't x4 resist or block it (looking at you Heatran). Flamethrower will also pair better with HP [Grass] or [Ground] also if in a pinch, your strategy doesn't work and Chandelure is only at +1, having Flamethrower + HP [Grass/Ground] will help a lot.

If you don't want to do that, you might also want to consider Flame Charge over Acid Armor; this will raise your speed by 1, effectively ending Chandelure's speed issues.

 

[Tendie]

I suppose Acid Armor really only serves to grant enough time to set up Acid Armor... I've been trying out using flamethrower as per your and Cap'n's suggestion, and it works wonderfully! Thanks for the advice!