LC Playstyles: Trick Room

[Rowan]

16:37 Rowan blarajan
16:37 Rowan can i make
16:37 Rowan a trick room thread
16:37 blarajan ok


Trick Room is a very unique playstyle and is one that many claim is useless and unviable. However a well-built trick room team can often be very disruptive to the opponent. This thread is basically for discussing the possibilities in Trick Room and how to overcome the many difficulties that Trick Room teams face.

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To start with let’s take a look at some good Pokemon which are necessary in a Trick Room team:

- Trick Room setters

Available TR Pokemon. Bold Pokemon are the most viable in my opinion.

Abra, Slowpoke, Gastly, Drowzee, Exeggcute, Porygon, Smoochum, Ralts, Spoink, Baltoy, Shuppet, Duskull, Chingling, Bronzor, Mime Jr., Misdreavus, Munna, Woobat, Yamask, Gothita, Solosis, Frillish, Elgyem, Litwick, Espurr, Spritzee, Inkay, Phantump, Pumpkaboo

Of course, if you are going to run a team dedicated to Trick Room, you will need a few good reliable Pokemon to set up Trick Room. If you want to set up Trick Room multiple times throughout a match, you'll need Pokemon that are fairly bulky or have some sort of recovery. Here are some good candidates:

With a base 85 Sp Atk stat and the ability to boost it with Download, Porygon is one of the best Trick Room Pokemon which can work as a Stand Alone sweeper. It can also run a bulkier set with Eviolite and Recover, meaning you can switch in throughout the game to set Trick Room up time and time again.

Thanks to Regenerator, Slowpoke can manage to set up Trick Room several times throughout a match, which is useful since Trick Room only lasts for a pitiful 5 turns. With its bulk and ability to wall threats, it makes a great addition to any Trick Room team.

Spritzee is another great Pokemon with access to Trick Room and can also support its team mates through Wish Passing. With its fantastic bulk, it has no problem switching into threats to set up Trick Room against.

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- Trick Room Sweepers

Pokemon that really benefit from Trick Room are slow, powerful Pokemon with good coverage. With only 5 turns to sweep, they need a lot of power to be able to break things down, and shouldn't be walled easily.

With Thick Club, Cubone can reach a whopping 30 Attack and use Earthquake, Knock Off and Double-Edge (with Rock Head), to hit everything at least neutrally. It also has other coverage options in Fire Punch, Thunder Punch and Rock Slide.

Like Cubone, Clamperl has a signature item, DeepSeaTooth, which can double Clamperl's already good Special Attack to 36, which means anything that doesn't resist Water is going to be seriously hurt. Its coverage only consists of Ice Beam and Hidden Power though.

With the highest base Attack stat in all of LC and good coverage with Earthquake, Fire Punch, Thunder Punch, Superpower and Crunch, Cranidos can be lethal when under Trick Room. It also has two great abilities: Mold Breaker can beat levitating Pokemon with Earthquake and get past Sturdy, whilst Sheer Force can be used to boost the power of Rock Slide, the elemental punches and Crunch.

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Despite seeming good on paper, Trick Room has many problems which dedicated teams often struggle to deal with. Here are 2 of the most common issues Trick Room teams come across:

-Priority. Because priority bypasses the effect of Trick Room and the fact that many Trick Room sweepers are frail, priority can be lethal for these sorts of teams. It's best to include Pokemon in your team that can deal with the most common priority users. Timburr and Croagunk are good choices for their naturally low Speed stats and their ability to beat Aqua Jet and Ice Shard users like Tirtouga, Carvanha and Snover. It might also be a good idea to run Substitute on your sweepers to bypass Sucker Punch.

-Limited turns. Because 5 turns are all you get to sweep, the opponent can switch around to waste turns of Trick Room. For this reason, prediction is very important to predict incoming switches. For example, if the opponent has just switched a Ferroseed into Cranidos to take a Rock Slide, the opponent can just switch to Slowpoke to take the incoming Fire Punch and waste a turn of Trick Room. However, if you predict this kind of stalling, you could use Crunch to hit Slowpoke as it switches in.

It is also important to not make your team too dependent on having Trick Room activated. If as soon as your Trick Room runs out and you get swept by a Speed Boost Carvanha, it's probably not a good team. Try and use Pokemon that can function outside of Trick Room as well as in it, so it doesn't fall apart after 5 turns.

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Discussion points:

- What are some other good Pokemon (with sets!) that are useful for Trick Room teams?
- What support Pokemon need to be added to help with your main sweeper(s)?
- Is it viable to have more than 1 dedicated Trick Room sweeper in a team?
- What are some good Pokemon (with sets!) that can work well against Trick Room teams?
- Is Trick Room too predictable and easy to work around?
- Is Trick Room viable? yes.

 

[Amp Pharaohs]

I think the turn limit really kills the strategy in Littlecup. Even with their massive attack stats, they aren't getting OHKO on everything, especially with Eviolite around. Not to mention Clamperl has low HP and Cranidos is weak to aqua jet, mach punch and bullet punch. Cubone's stab also has an immunity, but it has a few decent coverage moves. I think the hardest part is actually getting the Pokemon in to sweep, as it becomes pretty apparent that you are going to switch once you use Trick Room, as it lasts very few turns. I think you can make it work decently, but it would be very difficult to activate Trick Room multiple times through a match and still switch in your sweepers.
You have addressed most of these issues in the OP, but I think they are really the reason why it is almost unseen in Littlecup.

 

[Corporal Levi]

Solosis has a fairly potent base 105 SpA to work off of, which puts it on par with Abra. Its low speed should make it a decent candidate for both a Trick Room setter and sweeper, and it can probably pose as quite a nuisance to the enemy team with recoilless Life Orb-boosted attacks.
Over Solosis, Elgyem actually has reasonable bulk, but I'm not sure if it has enough advantages over Porygon to warrant use.
I also feel as if Litwick is a fairly potent trick room user. It's slow enough to abuse trick room and its dual STABs allow it to deal some damage despite its average stats.
As for abusers, I think Aron is worthy of mention simply because it gets a recoilless Head Smash which, with a Life Orb, cleanly 2HKOs Slowpoke (if it doesn't miss). Its resistances are another boon over Cranidos, granting it more opportunities to switch in.
LO Krabby and Corphish are another two Pokemon that might work, but it looks as if there's a few Pokemon that can wall them quite well.

 

[chimp]

Spritzee itself could try to sweep in the TR, with access to a fast wish, calm mind, and moonblast. Spritz doesn't care about priority, as it resists Mach Punch and Sucker Punch, and Meditite, the only real user of Bullet Punch, barely 3KOs.

Of course there are a lot of problems, like Foongus, Magnemite and other Poison/Steels, as well as the problem of it only lasting 5 turns (though somewhat less of an issue since Spritzee can set it up itself). This is all just theory, I haven't been able to try it yet.

 

[Kavatika]

Spritzee itself could try to sweep in the TR, with access to a fast wish, calm mind, and moonblast. Spritz doesn't care about priority, as it resists Mach Punch and Sucker Punch, and Meditite, the only real user of Bullet Punch, barely 3KOs.

Of course there are a lot of problems, like Foongus, Magnemite and other Poison/Steels, as well as the problem of it only lasting 5 turns (though somewhat less of an issue since Spritzee can set it up itself). This is all just theory, I haven't been able to try it yet.

The thing about TR sweepers (and this is true for any tier), is that they need to hit hard right off the bat, and not require setup, since TR only lasts a measly 5 turns. Besides the more time you spend setting up, the more time you give your opponent to kill you, and Spritzee, being a TR setter, would be a bad thing to lose.

 

[Wobbyble]

Why Trick Room is good

• WRECKS hyper offensive.
• "Duels" or "1 vs 1s" are very easy to win, because your stats go into offense and defense as opposed to offense and speed, but you still get to go first
• Many people are not used to this playstyle and misplay/don't know how to play against it
• It's fun

Why Trick room is bad

• It's very easy to lose momentum. Something set up while TR was down? lol gg
• It's very hard to balance utility, walls, and offensive power. i.e. Spritzee has to drop Aromatherapy for Trick Room. Now you can't cleric for your team
• You have to predict hardcore against other competent players. It's very easy to stall out the 4-5 turns by swapping, it's even easier with Regen cores
• Taunt/Encore and stuff are tricky to deal with
• You lose the option of paralysis as team support (imo it's one of the strongest statuses, stronger than sleep arguably)

Just my thoughts.

 

[acestriker19]

First off a really great pokemon and one that goes a long way in making trick room viable is Trapinch. Trapinch has the fourth highest base attack in the tier and two great abilities to help it succeed in trick room: Sheer Force and the amazing Arena Trap. Heres an example set with Trapinch.

Trapinch @ Berry Juice/Life Orb
Ability: Arena Trap
Level: 5
EVs: 196 Atk / 64 HP / 236 Def
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spd
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- Superpower
- Quick Attack
Arena Trap is an incredible ability in general and suits Trapinch well and really eases prediction for a Trick Room team. While Trapinch's 45/45/45 defenses are unimpressive they're enough to sweep in Trick Room without being wrecked by most priority users. Crunch and Rock Slide are good coverage for Trapinch as it helps it cover counters to Arena Trap such as levitate Misdreavus and Murkrow. Quick Attack is Trapinch's only form of priority and serves a way for a Trick Room team to trap and revenge low hp threats outside of Trick Room. Trapinch can also support psychic type setters such as Solosis and Elgyem by trapping Pawniard as it goes for a priority sucker punch on either in Trick Room.

Oh heres another one as well: Grimer, yes Grimer. Grimer actually has a good base 80 attack combined with great 80/50/50 defenses. Grimer also has 2 excellent abilities: Sticky Hold can allow Grimer to absorb Knock Offs for the team and Stench gives all its physical moves a chance to flinch. Heres a rushed Grimer set for Trick Room sweeping.

Grimer @ Eviolite/Berry Juice/Life Orb
Ability: Sticky Hold
Level: 5
EVs: 196 Atk / 196 Def / 116 SDef
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spd
- Gunk Shot/Poison Jab
- Ice Punch
- Shadow Sneak
- Fire Punch
As you can see Grimer gets all three elemental punches so pick your poison. Fire and Poison STAB is very good coverage while Ice punch takes down Gligar and other ground types who could kill Grimer with an Earthquake. Grimer also gets priority in Shadow Sneak allowing it to revenge weakened mons or get out some damage before it is taken down outside of Trick Room. Grimer complements Porygon very well as Porygon fears 3 things: fighting type moves, Knock Off and Toxic all of which Grimer can take.

Now that I'm done with that I will discuss my own personal experiences both using OU Trick Room and Little Cup Trick Room teams. IMO little cup Trick Room is way more difficult to do well than OU Trick Room for a variety of reasons.

1. Fighting Type + Knock Off coverage.
Dark/Fighting coverage is a nightmare for Trick Room teams because with the exception of Spritzee and Inkay every single Trick Room setter is weak to this common form of coverage. This means that mons who use this kind of coverage: Mienfoo and Timburr pose a very serious threat to the core of a Trick Room team. This a fact that LC trick room team have to contend with, it is VERY hard to get Trick Room up in the face of this attacking combination.

2. Eviolite and the prevalence of Bulky Sweepers
Unlike in OU eviolite allows most pokemon to have the potential to be both bulky and sweep teams, because of this a Trick Room sweep can turn into your sweeper failing to OHKO something and dying to its weakness. Trick Room teams don't have the luxury of switching very often so after the first kill and the opponent sends out his best counter the sweeper has to rely on its coverage and sheer power to break through the opponents best counter and when this fails which happens way more in LC Trick Room thanks to Eviolite than OU the results can have a severly negative effect on the outcome of a match

3. The Set-Up sweeper oriented meta-game
While defensively Trick Room teams are stronger than most they also give away a lot of free turns. Once Trick Room ends you have to both switch back to your Setter and set up Trick Room giving away 2 full turns right there more than enough time for a Swirlix to BD and sweep your whole team. In LC this means that when your sweeper is faced with a mon who has the potential to set up and sweep your team that sweeper has to stay in because letting your opponent set up for free would basically mean the end for a Trick Room team.

Personally, I've been frusterated running LC Trick Room. Maybe its because I haven't been using the most optimal mons or I don't have enough experience yet with the metagame but all my attempts have ended in spectacular failure. While I love Trick Room and find it to be the most fun strategy for me to employ it is an entirely different beast in Little Cup. (This post has gone on for way too long sorry!)

 

[unitard]

I used Trick Room a little bit last gen and it was always a ton of fun to play with (great against Double Rush teams). It's feast or famine though. You'll blow out a reasonably solid team one match because they're not prepared for it and then you'll get dominated the next just because your opponent has Taunt.

I think Trick Room teams can find their way around the stalling problem by using a few bulky setters. While your opponent is worried about stalling out your Trick Room turns, you plan your next setup. Porygon and Slowpoke were an amazing setter core last gen, and the addition of Spritzee seems like a godsend (I used Bronzor last gen, but it sort of sucks). If you predict well, you can turn most of the battle into Trick Room.

I think, especially with the popularity of Berry Juice and Knock Off, Trick Room should be viable (I think it was more viable than people gave it credit for last gen), but I'd have to give it a try. Last gen, the biggest problem was definitely Taunt. Porygon is probably the best answer to Taunt, since it can hit the most common users super effectively (Gligar, Misdreavus) depending on its moveset. Also, you can disguise your team a bit since Porygon and Slowpoke are so useful anyway.

 

[Rowan]

Now that many people have given their thoughts, I thought I'd share some of mine. Many people are commenting saying that the turn limit is the main problem with Trick Room, and of course that is a massive issue. However, I can't help thinking that this is because people are playing with Trick Room wrong. You can't just have a bulky Pokemon set up Trick Room, switch to your sweeper and expect to sweep in 4 turns.

I think of Trick Room as more of a Bulky Offense playstyle that relies on defensive synergy to switch between things. Here's my team as an example:

Trick Room team

Slowpoke @ Eviolite
Ability: Regenerator
Level: 5
EVs: 196 HP / 76 Atk / 236 Def
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spd
- Trick Room
- Aqua Tail
- Zen Headbutt
- Slack Off

Porygon @ Berry Juice
Ability: Download
Level: 5
EVs: 236 HP / 240 SAtk
Quiet Nature
IVs: 30 Def / 30 SAtk / 30 SDef / 2 Spd
- Trick Room
- Tri Attack
- Shadow Ball
- Hidden Power [Fighting]

Cubone @ Thick Club
Ability: Rock Head
Level: 5
EVs: 196 HP / 196 Atk / 76 Def / 36 SDef
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spd
- Earthquake
- Knock Off
- Double-Edge
- Substitute

Timburr @ Eviolite
Ability: Guts
Level: 5
EVs: 76 HP / 196 Atk / 76 Def / 156 SDef
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spd
- Drain Punch
- Knock Off
- Ice Punch
- Mach Punch

Murkrow @ Eviolite
Ability: Prankster
Level: 5
EVs: 196 HP / 180 Def / 100 SDef / 28 Spd
Impish Nature
- Brave Bird
- Sucker Punch
- Haze
- Roost

Litwick @ Berry Juice
Ability: Flash Fire
Level: 5
EVs: 116 HP / 76 Def / 236 SAtk / 76 SDef
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Spd
- Trick Room
- Fire Blast
- Shadow Ball
- Energy Ball

As you can see, Cubone is my only real 'sweeper' but even then, I play it as more of a wallbreaking role. I use good defensive synergy between all of my Pokemon to provide easy switches with reasonably powerful Pokemon hitting hard. I don't rely on Trick Room being up all of the time and only use it if I happen to get a free turn with one of my setters - this does actually happen pretty often though, so I can have a battle with Trick Room up about 70% of the time. This can often just disrupt their strategy and moving first on most of my mons for 5 turns just puts me at a slight advantage. However, I don't just switch to Cubone and expect a win at that point. I don't even care that much when Trick Room goes, since I just play it like a regular bulky offense team. So yeah, if you try to expect to sweep hard in 5 turns, you're probably playing TR wrong because it's so easy to stall out.
Also, I'm using bulky HazeKrow, which stops set-up sweepers when TR ends: many people are saying that Trick Room is very weak to being set up on after it ends and HazeKrow is a very good support mon for this reason.
Timburr is also a fantastic support Pokemon, being slow and threatening under TR, but also beating many common priority Pokemon like Pawniard, Carvanha and Tirtouga.
So those are 2 pokemon which work really well to solve some of the many issues that Trick Room has.

 

[Goddess Briyella]

There needs to be something important added to the things that give Trick Room problems.

Trick Room, the move itself that sets the field effect, actually has -7 priority, which is a huge disadvantage. This means that a user of this move can be effectively removed from battle on the turn it is selected, without ever getting to set it up, because Roar, Whirlwind, Dragon Tail, and Circle Throw all have higher priority (-6). For example, Munchlax's Whirlwind (which usually goes last) will move before Trick Room and the user of Trick Room will basically not get to move and will lose a turn, while also being forcibly switched out to a random ally.

 

[unitard]

Corkscrew: One thing you should definitely mention in the OP is that Spritzee gets Aroma Veil, which makes it immune to Taunt. I've been experimenting with this a bit and Spritzee is a great third setter (in addition to Porygon and Slowpoke). Wish support is also great, because you can set up Trick Room, use Wish, and then switch right into one of your sweepers.

I've also found that Clamperl is an great option for a Trick Room sweeper. I've been using Surf/Ice Beam/HP Grass/Shell Smash with 11 Speed. It hits outrageously hard with no setup, but it can still function outside of Trick Room thanks to Shell Smash. Shell Smash also allows you to play some mind games on the last turn of Trick Room. If your opponent switches out to stall out that last turn, you can Shell Smash and try to sweep.

Briyella: Trick Room having negative priority isn't really a huge deal since you want your setters to be slow so they can abuse Trick Room anyway. It really only matters for those few moves you mentioned (Roar, Whirlwind, etc) and when you're up against things like Munchlax, when you probably don't want to set up TR anyway.

As for the Fighting+Knock Off issue: As was pointed out, Spritzee can deal with these. Also, Slowpoke can take easily take a Knock Off from Timburr/Mienfoo if necessary, set up TR, and hit back with Zen Headbutt.

 

[Wobbyble]

I would consider Substitute > Shell Smash for Clamperl, because one of the huge downsides to Trick Room is having to predict what your opponent is going to switch to while they're stalling out the 5 turns. Sub lets you bypass that and eases prediction a lot, not to mention it allows you to run 7 Speed so you aren't faster than things like Porygon and Spritzee and Slowpoke.

 

[unitard]

Wobby: Thanks for the suggestion, that definitely makes more sense.

 

[Brosb4Ho-ohs]

Even though it has its viable abusers, i feel like trick room is a gimmicky strategy and is hard to win against experienced players with well built teams. On top of that, it detracts momentum which is critical in such a high speed metagame.

 

[The Avalanches]

Even though it has its viable abusers, i feel like trick room is a gimmicky strategy and is hard to win against experienced players with well built teams. On top of that, it detracts momentum which is critical in such a high speed metagame.

It's weird that you're bumping these long-dead threads.

And a lot of teams in this high-paced meta have a lot of trouble handling Trick Room. Sticky Web in particular is pretty helpless against a good Trick Room team. I'd post the one I've been using, but I cba.