I got sand in my Magnezone

[joehigashi]

Changes will be in blue. Like so.



Intro




After listening to the Smogcast recently, I really wanted to try out that stall breaker Gliscor on a team for myself. Since I'm still kinda new at making teams I think it still has quite a few weaknesses, but from play testing on Shoddy and on Wi-Fi I think I have identified quite a few of them.

At a glance

16/05 - Switched Azelf for Jirachi

16/05 - Switched Vaporeon for Suicune

In Depth

Jirachi

Jirachi @ Choice Scarf | Jolly
4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
- Stealth Rock
- Iron Head
- Ice Punch
- Fire Punch

"This Jirachi serves as both a method of getting a quick Stealth Rock up, and a revenge killer for later on. It deals with lead Machamp excellently, simply Iron Head away and 2HKO it. Against Salamence, Jirachi can outspeed Mixmence and OHKO with Ice Punch. DDMence is a little trickier, since they speed-tie, but luring an Outrage and switching to Jirachi means that Salamence won't destroy your team." - Knightofthewind

I have been trying out this lead scarfrachi over Azelf and It's working well. It deals with Machamp easily and usually forces a switch. And can come back later and set SR up. Actually I'm finding that is survives the first few rounds pretty easily and is great to have around through-out the match. So far haven't met any noticably difficult match ups with other leads, but I'm still testing.


Tyranitar

@Choice Scarf
Nature: Jolly
EVs: 252 ATK/ 252 SPE/ 4 HP
-Stone Edge
-Pursuit
-Crunch
-Earth Quake

Standard Scarftar. Not much to say really, he helps pursuit away threats, most importantly opposing Latias. He gets the sand going which is always helpful, and makes Gliscor the beast that he is late game. I run Fire Punch instead of Crunch because I rarely ever use it. I find that I'm always Pursuiting, predicting a switch, or just trapping them, so I thought I'd use Fire Punch to catch Scizor on the switch. It's worked a few times so not much to complain about.

I put Crunch back onto Tyranitar to catch Pokemon that predict a pursuit and don't run, like Rotom forms.

Latias

@ Life Orb
Nature: Timid
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spd
- Surf
- Draco Meteor
- Thunderbolt
- Recover

Man, I love this set so much. Latias is arguably the most effective special sweeper in the metagame right now, and I've been using this set for as long as I can remember. Always nets me at least 1 kill, and it's unusual for her to get less than 2. Even when I mess up big time, she can come in mid-game and just sweep anything that's thrown at her.

I run Grass Knot over T.bolt because I don't have much to check Swampert. Also it 2HKOs Gyarados, and hurts Suicune/Vap/most bulky waters too.

"Latias retains its hard-hitting nature, but it also has a bit of staying power with Recover, and can also switch attacks. Now, I'm recommending Thunderbolt over Grass Knot because simply put, Latias doesn't really need it. While it does deal serious damage to Swampert, so does Draco Meteor, not to mention most of Latias' common switch-ins are Steel types, so you lose the nice neutral coverage Thunderbolt has. Thunderbolt also means Latias isn't set-up bait for SubPetaya Empoleon." -- Knightofthewind

Magnezone

@Leftovers/Salac berry
Nature: Timid
EVs: 28 HP / 252 SpA / 228 Spd
- Explosion
- Thunderbolt
- Substitute
- Hidden Power [Ice]

This is the first team I've used Zone on..and I gotta say it rocks having a 100% Scizor counter. He does great against a few other steels too, and once he's set up behind a Sub with a +1 sp.atk boost, he can get full sweeps pretty easily. I bring him in on a bullet punch, sub up, bullet punch can't break the sub then I charge beam. The rest, as they say, is history. :D

I went with Hidden Power Ice for coverage against ground and dragons, but lately I have been considering switching to ground. Not sure yet.

Changed charge beam for Explosion, and edited the nature and EVs to be faster. As suggested by Abutorn

Gliscor

@Leftovers
Nature: Jolly
EVs: 252 HP/ 40 DEF/ 216 SPE
- Toxic
- Earthquake
- Taunt
- Roost

This is the new Poke I've been trying out after hearing the Smogcast, and I really, really like it. It's gotten me out of quite a few predicaments with Sandveil, and it can outstall a lot of tough things for me. Sometimes I run U-turn over Toxic, because it's great for scouting, but overall I would have to say Toxic has helped me out more during the course of a match.

Him and Tyranitar are a nice duo in my team, and I really feel it if they get knocked out early. So I try to take out major threats to them with Latias and Magnezone.

Suicune

@ Leftovers
Nature: Timid
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
- Calm Mind
- Surf
- Ice Beam
- HP Electric

Suicune retains Vaporeon's bulk and resistances and also has an offensive presense. Suicune is very hard to OHKO, and its excellent type coverage means it's difficult for any offensive team to take down most Suicune. After Magnezone blows up on Blissey, Suicune can easily sweep most stall teams and Trick users are dealt with by Tyranitar.



Conclusion


I have a lot of fun with this team, but I have trouble with a few Pokemon. Machamp can pretty much come in and kill everything if he has Ice Punch and Dynamic Punch. Swampert messes me up badly which is why I gave Latias grass knot over T.bolt, but if she goes down before Swampy comes out it's pretty much GG, or he'll take a large chunk of my team down.

Salamence can have fun against my team too, again Latias is the main check, and if Magnezone is set up he can take care of him.

Basically I find my biggest problem is that I rely too heavily on Latias to check a lot of popular Pokemon, and that screws me over if she goes down unexpectantly. So yeah, that's my team, I would be interested to know what people think about it, and welcome any changes anyone could think of.

16/05 - Machamp can now be taken care of by Jirachi , who also helps Latias take out Salamence too. Swampert is still a bit of a problem, so I am thinking about putting HP:Grass on Magnezone. Still taking suggestions though.

 

[KidX]

Maybe you didnt read the smog, but a LO sceptile with focus blast/leaf storm/hp ice/dragon pulse can really dent your team. I suggest that you get a fire type in here.

 

[MegaKick]

yeah because latais can't switchin on hidden power fire and OHKO ease, same with scarftar.
Oh wait!
Your right about latias being so important, I reccomend pherhaps changing vaporeon to cressilia? Grass knot/Ice Beam - reflect - thunder wave - psychic will help.

 

[googlyeyesultra]

LO Sceptile does actually outspeed and beat scarftar, so it doesn't check it at all. Latias is also outsped, but it does have the bulk to take an HP ice. You may need to play around it a little; with decent prediction LO sceptile is going to tear up your team.

Something like DDmence looks like it would give you quite a bit of trouble as well. Or agiligross, perhaps, depending on how healthy vaporeon is at the time. Replacing vaporeon with gyarados would help slightly with each of these threats and would probably maintain offensive pressure somewhat better. If you do choose this, make sure to run taunt over psychic to help keep SR off. Note that most Machamp are ev'd to not care much about lead Azelf's psychic, so you'll still get beaten anyways.

You could also consider running HP grass on magnezone and switching grass knot for thunderbolt on latias. Latias can bash through swampert with draco meteor pretty easily anyways, but magnezone might be walled by him otherwise.

 

[KnightoftheWind]

Like you have noticed, lead Machamp and Salamence are both pains for your team to deal with. Machamp can beat your Azelf lead one on one even if you decide on Psychic for Azelf, since most lead Machamp run EVs designed to survive lead Azelf's Psychic. Later on in the match, Machamp is able to easily switch into your Tyranitar easily and cause a ton of problems for your team, since between Dynamicpunch, Payback and Ice Punch, It can hit every one of your Pokemon for super-effective damage except for Vaporeon, who isn't exactly adept in dealing with repeated Dynamicpunches. Salamence, both the Mixed and Dragon Dance varieties, can also be a massive threat. Your only Steel type, Magnezone, is much slower than Salamence, and is therefore quite vulnerable to Salamence even if you predict right and get Magnezone in on a Draco Meteor, as Salamence can then just simply Earthquake or Brick Break. Dragon Dance Salamence is also a big threat, getting free set-up against Tyranitar locked into Earthquake or Fire Punch and Latias locked into Grass Knot or Surf. You have no priority moves or any Pokemon that can outspeed Salamence after a Dragon Dance, so Salamence can thunder right through your team after it Earthquakes Magnezone.

In order to take care of both of these threats, I recommend you replace your Azelf with Jirachi.

Jirachi @ Choice Scarf | Jolly
4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Stealth Rock / Iron Head / Ice Punch / Fire Punch

This Jirachi serves as both a method of getting a quick Stealth Rock up, and a revenge killer for later on. It deals with lead Machamp excellently, simply Iron Head away and 2HKO it. Against Salamence, Jirachi can outspeed Mixmence and OHKO with Ice Punch. DDMence is a little trickier, since they speed-tie, but luring an Outrage and switching to Jirachi means that Salamence won't destroy your team.

I really do feel you need Crunch on your Tyranitar. Sometimes you'll find that your opponent will predict Pursuit and stay in, take little damage from Pursuit and do something horrible to Tyranitar. For example, defensive Rotom-A won't take much damage from Pursuit and then proceed to burn Tyranitar, crippling it for the rest of the match. Besides, it's not like Tyranitar really requires Fire Punch just for Scizor. Stone Edge can 2HKO Scizor, and you can just go to Magnezone to take Scizor down.

Having three Choiced Pokemon now can really leave you easily set-up upon. I suggest you change your Latias set to this.

Latias @ Life Orb | Timid
4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spd
Draco Meteor / Surf / Thunderbolt / Recover

Latias retains its hard-hitting nature, but it also has a bit of staying power with Recover, and can also switch attacks. Now, I'm recommending Thunderbolt over Grass Knot because simply put, Latias doesn't really need it. While it does deal serious damage to Swampert, so does Draco Meteor, not to mention most of Latias' common switch-ins are Steel types, so you lose the nice neutral coverage Thunderbolt has. Thunderbolt also means Latias isn't set-up bait for SubPetaya Empoleon.

I think you shouldn't be trying to sweep with Magnezone. Magnezone's low Speed and weaknesses to some of the most common offensive types in the metagame means that Magnezone won't be pulling off a successful sweep most of the time. Explosion would be a better fit for Charge Beam's slot. This lets you easily take down Blissey, allowing your Latias to sweep.

Finally, if you want a replacement for Vaporeon, try out a Suicune.

Suicune @ Leftovers | Timid
4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Calm Mind / Surf / Ice Beam / HP Electric

Suicune retains Vaporeon's bulk and resistances and also has an offensive presense. Suicune is very hard to OHKO, and its excellent type coverage means it's difficult for any offensive team to take down most Suicune. After Magnezone blows up on Blissey, Suicune can easily sweep most stall teams and Trick users are dealt with by Tyranitar.

Good luck with your team.

 

[Abutorn]

Hey joehigashi,

On Tyranitar you might want to remove Fire punch since you're lacking a real powerful Dark attack namely Crunch would work the best when you know an opponents going to stay in and it's really reliable overall with decent power, you don't really need Fire punch reason being you have one of the best Pokemons to check with Scizor which is Magnezone so it wouldn't be a huge threat to your team for the most part, so no need to be worrying about it.

Offensively what I notice about your team is that you're definitely weak to common Dragon Dancers namely Salamence and Gyarados, so what I have thought to fix this problem is to change Latias item in Choice scarf to outspeed most Dragon Dancers with +1 DD. Why it isn't that much of a change is that you already have a strong special attacking hitter, so not much of a difference there. Your team doesn't get walled by Swampert which is the reason you listed above you put Grass knot in replace with Thunderbolt, you have Vaporeon to outstall it so I don't see you getting walled by Swampert for the most part. So might want to try Thunderbolt to hit other water types especially Gyarados which could cause quite a dent in your team if you don't do something about it.

On Magnezone you haven't explained the EVs that you given it, which I don't think makes some sense at all, just to add some bulk? But besides the point you definitely need speed since Magnezone lacks a lot of speed so you might want to try these EVs that worked similar to the SubCharge Beam set: 28 HP / 252 SpA / 228 Spd. Since Magnezone again is really slow you need to change the nature also into Timid. Bring all of those changes together and it brings your speed into 234 which is a huge improvement, but it won't be helping you to get much of a sweep since it still doesn't have the capability of high speed so since your moveset looks exactly the same of the SubSalac Sweeper you might want to change your item into Salac Berry to provide a 1.5 boost when your HP falls below 25%.

Good luck with the team in the future.

 

[joehigashi]

@KnightoftheWind: Thanks for your indepth reply. I really like that lead Jirachi set, and I think I will try it out for a while on shoddy.

Like yourself and Abutorn mentioned, I will put Crunch back on ttar, I can see your reasoning and it's probably not worth running firepunch seeing as it's too situational.

With Latias I like the set you mentioned, but I will really miss that extra power. What do you think about replacing recover with Calm mind instead?

And with the Suicune, I am gonna try him out instead of Vappy, I really like Uberiffic's suggestion of a Cressellia too, but with Rachi being able to take care of Machamp I'm not sure which is going to be more useful.


@Abutorn: Thanks for your reply, the EV spread on Magnezone was actually a friends idea, but I have noticed he is just too slow now. I will try your spread out with the Salac berry and see how it goes.

Also from KnightoftheWind's suggestions I'm gonna give him Explosion instead of Charge Beam.

 

[george182]

Scarf tyranitar is veyr predictable now, and tbh I don't see much need for it on this team.

But DD tyranitar, can take advanatage of the fact ppl think it's scarfed, a life orb could be used, and a Jolly nature, as magnezone handles scizor. DD tyranitar also aprreciates the holes from specs latias, and wish support from vaporeon

 

[Geezar10]

Maybe replacing Vaporeon isn't the only option you could try to alter him to this more offensive move set.

Vaporeon @ Choice Specs
Ability: Water Absorb
Nature: Modest
EVs: 188 Def / 68 Spe / 252 SpA
-Hydro Pump
-Hidden Power Electric
-Ice Beam
-Wish​

 

[joehigashi]

Maybe replacing Vaporeon isn't the only option you could try to alter him to this more offensive move set.

Vaporeon @ Choice Specs
Ability: Water Absorb
Nature: Modest
EVs: 188 Def / 68 Spe / 252 SpA
-Hydro Pump
-Hidden Power Electric
-Ice Beam
-Wish​

Hmm, I don't have much experience with offensive Vappy, how does it compare to Suicune? It does have the advantage of having wish support though.

 

[joehigashi]

I've been trying out Suicune over Vaporeon on Shoddy and it's doing great. Netting me some sweeps I wouldn't of got before, and is more than bulky enough to take incoming surfs etc

 

[george182]

Vaporeon has much higher sp.atk but at the loss of physical bulk, and no access to calm mind. Wish solves the bulk problem, and choice specs solve the lack of calm mind, but tbh its still a wanna be suicune.

What is the need of scarf tyranitar, surely a DD t-tar would be better as it can set up pokemon like latias, instead of taking them out, and has the surprise factor. A lum berry allows you to take on rotom forms, while life orb gives you insain power

 

[joehigashi]

Honestly I'm just more comfortable with Scarftar, I've never tried a DDtar before, but I suppose it would be good for the surprise factor.

 

[joehigashi]

bump

 

[joehigashi]

legal bump

 

[3v3rnoob]

I think that if you don't mind changing your rachi set, It can help you in the later game to counter some of the things that you're currently relying on Latias for. I think that if you sacrifice one of your punches for trick, you can force a switch on the other person's lead, set up rocks, and then switch out for attacking later.

 

[joehigashi]

I think that if you don't mind changing your rachi set, It can help you in the later game to counter some of the things that you're currently relying on Latias for. I think that if you sacrifice one of your punches for trick, you can force a switch on the other person's lead, set up rocks, and then switch out for attacking later.

Maybe, thanks for the idea

 

[greenstreet]

Your team has only one ground immunity and that hurs alot so I suggest running a Gengar variant now in place of latias or maybe dropping tyranitar for a swampert and making him your lead and your jirachi a revenge killer.

Hope I helped.