I'm Tormenting You [OU]

[ULra]

The Building Process:
Well, I wanted to finally try out this praised Celetran combo. I never much liked Celebi for whatever reason, so I never much got around to it. What better time than now to start? I mean, not that it's Exam week or anything. Not like I should be studying for them or sleeping. That's just silly.

Now, with these two beefcakes, I needed to abuse their bulk. I've loved playing the stall game for forever, and these two have sets that could easily abuse switching, so I instantly thought: Entry Hazards. Tentacruel and Skarmory got dropped in instantly.

At this point, I realized that I would undoubtedly need a spin blocker. Bored of the tired old Gengar, Rotom, and Dusknoir options, I expanded my horizons outward into the bounds of UU. I decided on Spite Spiritomb, since I always seemed to run into stall war problems, and Spite simply wrecks that possibility.

Now, I definitely wasn't stacking Stealth Rock on Skarmory or Heatran, and I had an enormous electricity weakness. Sadly, ground is just as lonely a type as ghost in this meta, it seems. And I needed something that could effectively drop down rocks. That dropped out Flygon and Mamoswine. Celebi, Tentacruel, and Spiritomb wouldn't appreciate Hippowdon's sandstream, so it was between Swampert and Gliscor. Swampert's typing fit so much more wonderfully, so here he is.

The Team:

Swampert@Leftovers
Relaxed // 252/6/252/0/0/0
Torrent
- Earthquake/Toxic
- Ice Beam
- Stealth Rock
- Roar

Far too many Skarmory and Forretress are bulking defensively now to justify the use of Surf or Hydro Pump, so I opted for the Ground/Ice power duo. Swampert's first, and often, only, objective is to get Stealth Rocks down. The idea of a suicide lead is rather silly, as Stealth Rock is my only real answer to racking damage on those that dodge Spikes. I'd need to be sure that those Rocks could always be present. pHazing is Swampert's only other true function. Perish Song is a bit too gimpy, what with taking 3 turns to truly take hold, and Torment can only jerk someone around for so long before they figure out the pattern. Toxic is an allure, though. I'm just not sure if Swampert has the tanking ability to constantly Roar out and Toxic the opposition.

Synergy
Grass: Heatran, Skarmory, Celebi

- - - - -

Tentacruel@Black Sludge
Calm // 252/0/120/0/136/0
Liquid Ooze
- Hidden Power: Electric
- Ice Beam
- Rapid Spin
- Toxic Spikes

Tentacruel is BY FAR my favorite Rapid Spinner. Toxic Spikes are incredibly scary, and Tentacruel is virtually the only Spinner that can actually suck them up. Forretress resists sure, but it still actually requires to take that turn to spin, opening up the spin blocker switch. Tentacruel avoids that hindrance, and can respond with its own Toxic Spikes. A gimpy boltbeam rounds out the set, as this team is a DD-fearing one. Black Sludge over Leftovers because, well, Trick scares me.I need an answer somewhere.

Synergy
Electric: Swampert, Celebi
Ground: Skarmory, Celebi
Psychic: Spiritomb, Celebi, Heatran, Skarmory

- - - - -

Spiritomb@Leftovers
Careful // 252/0/144/0/114/0
Pressure
- Pursuit
- Rest
- Sleep Talk
- Spite

As I've said above, the main wall I always ran into with my stall teams was getting outstalled by the likes of Blissey, who have a ridiculous amount of PP and survivability. Spite Spiritomb alleviates this problem with the combination of hacking away 4 PP whenever it wants, along with essentially halving the opposition's PP with Pressure. Resttalk also gives me access to a status absorber, of sorts.

Synergy
Not Weak to anything!

- - - - -

Skarmory@Leftovers
Impish // 252/0/240/0/0/12
Keen Eye
- Protect
- Roost
- Spikes
- Torment

The idea of TormenTran attracts me so much, I've got to try it on another steel type. Skarmory can, arguably, utilize the set even better than Heatran. There exists very few Pokemon that typically carry both an Electric and a Fire move (Rotom-H and Gengar are all that come to mind).

Synergy
Electric: Swampert, Celebi
Fire: Heatran, Tentacruel, Swampert

- - - - -

Heatran@Leftovers
Calm // 244/0/0/32/12/222
Flash Fire
- Lave Plume/Taunt?
- Protect
- Substitute
- Torment

I took a long (almost a year) break from Pokemon, and at that time, scarftran was on the top, and running anything else was pretty much ridiculous. I browsed through Smogon's sets a while back and see this behemoth. It looked incredibly interesting. I tried it out on a team and it worked marvelously. It NEVER died. I was dumbfounded. Many times, TormenTran forced out struggles. With the help of Spiritomb's notorious PP draining, this success rate should hit the roof. With Tentacruel's Toxic Spike coverage, this set could also very well kill whatever it's stalling before Struggling it. This fact makes me consider dropping Lava Plume (and the respective EVs) for Taunt. Thoughts?

Synergy
Ground: Skarmory, Celebi.
Fighting: Spiritomb, Celebi, Tentacruel.
Water: Celebi, Tentacruel

- - - - -

Celebi@Leftovers
Bold // 252/0/220/0/0/38
Natural Cure
- Leech Seed
- Perish Song
- Recover
- U-Turn

A very minor alteration to that classic Perish Song set, namely Leech Seed. Looking over my team, I can tell already that two of these Pokemon will have difficulty keeping their HP up (Swampert, Tentacruel), and they'll need all the help they can get. Outside of that, an entirely normal Perish Song set. I half-considered dumping Celebi's EVs into Special Defense instead of Defense, but realized that most of Celebi's weaknesses are typically of the special variety, and it wouldn't appreciate taking those hits regardless of how it's been EV'd.

Synergy
Bug: Heatran, Skarmory, Tentacruel
Dark: Heatran, Skarmory
Fire: Heatran, Tentacruel, Swampert
Flying: Skarmory, Heatran
Ghost: Heatran, Skarmory
Ice: Heatran, Tentacruel
Poison: Heatran, Skarmory, Tentacruel, Spiritomb

 

[bubbly]

Bizarrely enough, this is the exact same team as one I made up today, except I was running a SubCharge Rotom and some of the sets had alterations.
Are you sure that Spiritomb is best for your team? I've never used a Spite Spiritomb, although I recall they used to be notable - is it effective enough to be better than something with better typing and options such as Rotom?

Apart from that, you have a lot of problems as you mentioned with things like Gyarados, which is obviously partly why you're running Perish Song Celebi. The problem is that this is almost your only counter. Since you're not running Leaf Storm on Celebi (I did for this reason), its kinda easy for a ScarfTar to eliminate leaving your team open to a number of threats.
The usual stallbreakers are also painful for you. Tentacruel is hands down the best Infernape counter in OU BUT since you're also relying on it for spinning, Toxic Spikes, and to an extent countering Gyarados, it could die very quickly. Meanwhile, most of the rest of your team can be OHKO'd.
Dragonite's similar, the popular mixed set can OHko practically everything except Swampert (which can hardly switch in).

Starmie's a possible solution, OHKO'ing both of these, but it would presumably replace Tentacruel and you then lose Toxic Spikes.

 

[metsrule158]

A Swmapert can easily counter most of your team with SE attacks (except for Spiritomb which is a 3HKO from a STAB EQ) and with an Infernape packed along with it, your team is really nothing to those two. You might want to think about swithing your Spiritomb out for something else (Machamp or Rotom-H are good suggestions) as Physically MixedApe can 2HKO Spiritomb with an Overheat and then a Stone Edge. Another possible change is to pick a different Celebi ste (preferably with Grass Knot and Psychic.

 

[Super Mario Bro]

You need to place Surf on Tentacruel to counter Infernape. Swampert is already a decent enough Dragonite counter, so I don't see why Ice Beam is needed.

Your team is very weak to Swords Dance Lucario. If it accumulates a Swords Dance, your whole team is swept. Try a Choice Scarf Jirachi over Celebi (and consider placing it in the lead position, as Swampert is a very lackluster lead).

Jirachi @ Choice Scarf
Adamant
EVs: 252 Atk/252 Spe/4 SpD
-Iron Head
-U-Turn
-Fire Punch
-Trick

Very nice team though. I never really thought about Spite Spiritomb! However, you may want to place Curse over Spite to give your team a more reliable win condition:

Spiritomb @ Leftovers
Calm
EVs: 252 HP/140 Def/116 SpD
-Curse
-Will-O-Wisp
-Rest
-Dark Pulse

 

[Lucien Lachance]

Do you mean Calm Mind >> Curse?

I like Ice Punch >> Trick on Jirachi. Allows you to KO Flygon and Aerodactyl.

 

[Super Mario Bro]

Do you mean Calm Mind >> Curse?

I like Ice Punch >> Trick on Jirachi. Allows you to KO Flygon and Aerodactyl.

No, I mean Curse. Curse lets him eliminate last Pokemon stat-boosters like Snorlax or Suicune, and relying on Trick from Jirachi isn't always a good idea because things like Magnezone exist. CroTomb really only works in UU anyway.

Iron Head already KOs Aerodactyl and Flygon can potentially outspeed, so it's not always a good idea to keep it in on him. Plus, Swampert already gets rid of Dragonite, so I don't think Ice Punch is needed.