TEAM BUILDING PROCESS
I wanted to build around pinsir this time, first i thought that ho is better suited for pinsir than any other playstyle. Then I chose the hazard setters garchomp (checks nearly every physical attacker) and klefki (lati, diancie and weavile switchin and provides t-wave support), followed by the hazard removal: starmie.
I needed some lure to physical walls to help pinsir and something fast, first i chose mix victini and latios but nasty plot thundurus destroyed me (electric types in general) so I changed the victini for a mamo (helps with the thundurus weakness and destroys teams, also luring rotom and skarm) and scarfed the latios (helps with lopunny and manectric and picks suprise KOs on tornadus and other lati revenge killers, also helps a lot with skarms, slowbros, clefables, ferrothorns and suicunes with trick)
THE TEAM
Pinsir-Mega @ Pinsirite
Ability: Hyper Cutter
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly/Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Return
- Quick Attack
- Close Combat
The star of the team. This pokemon serves as a massive win condition as he has the potential to clean up offensive tams thanks to its aerialite boosted priority and also can destroy fat teams by swords dancing up. Pinsir also pack decent bulk and can has very few counters due his ability to nulify steel and rock types with close combat. Mega Pinsir worst enemies are stealth rocks, skarmory, rotom-w, zapdos and faster revenge killers, so it needs a lot of support to excel at his job. I prefer jolly over adamnt but that's up to you to decide.
Garchomp @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Rough Skin
EVs: 240 HP / 176 Def / 92 Spe
Impish Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Dragon Tail
- Fire Blast
Standard fat chomp: needed a stealth rocker and a bird check, it also helps with putting every physical attacker on pinsir range like excadrill, loppuny, bisharp or mega metagross. You can run toxic but then you are to weak to scizor and ferrothorn. Rocks are key for pinsir, it puts tornadus-t in plus two quick attack range, slowbro oin plus two return range, heatran in close combat range, they worn down manectric, raykou, landorus, rotom and thundurus. If you want to clean up with pinsir you should put up rocks.
Klefki @ Leftovers
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpA / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
- Spikes
- Thunder Wave
- Flash Cannon/Dazzling gleam
- Magnet Rise
Something every team shoud have: a lati switch in. As said it provides counter to the lati twins and a check to weavile,tyranitar, tornadus and diancie also setting spikes and paralysing threats. Spikes are not as necessary as stealth rocks but they are a huge help with fat teams: slowbro, heatran, tyranitar, manaphy, garchom, hippowdon... T-wave helps a lot with set up sweepers as charizard, gyarados and every dragon dancer, launching a last resort t-wave when something is going to kill you is alos a great move.
Starmie @ Life Orb
Ability: Analytic
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Hydro Pump
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Beam
- Rapid Spin
This pokemon is in the team mainly for rapid spin support, but it also helps against offense and balanced as they usually pack very few switch ins. Initially this was a bulky starmie but as I found the work it was doing underwhelming and I wasn't particuallary weak to keldeo or loppuny (latios and pinsir) i changed to a life orb set, this leaves the team a little more weak to sand (bulky starmie lives a life orb eq from excadrill) but it helps a lot dealing a lot of damge to metagross, serperior, thundurus and weakening slowbro, skarmory, zapdos, and rotom-w for pinsir as well as dealing with the most common stealth rockers. If you find the weakness to excadrill to be a big liability you can always change it back
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Psyshock
- Hidden Power [Fire] / Memento
- Trick
At first this was your typical life orb latios but the team struggled a lot with nasty plot thundurus, raykou, mega manectric and offense in general so I decided to slap a choice scarf on it.
Besides the obvious (keldeo check, water resit, ground resist, rotom answer...) this pokemon does so much work is ridiculous: it picks 0 KOs on thundurus and manectric when rocks are up, it revenges nearly every pokemon used on offensive teams (scizor, weavile, electric types, kyurem, starmie...) and weakens a lot of mons, like slowbro, ferrothorn, mega metagross, heatran, clefable or torn (2 hit KOed with rocks up) helping pinsir clean up. Trick is a very cool move against stall or bulkier teams, and althoug it's there mainly for skarmory it helps with the occasional crocune, clef or slowbro (cm users in general). Seeing as hp fire didn't perform well as I though it would I'm currently testing memento.
Mamoswine @ Life Orb
Ability: Thick Fat
EVs: 240 Atk / 16 SpA / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
- Ice Shard
- Earthquake
- Icicle Crash
- Freeze-Dry
After using the last 5 slots for the team I found it a little bit weak to electric types and offense in general (I know I'm getting repetitve) and I also needed a wallbreaker that could help pinsir by weakening his counters or checks so I decided on life orb mamoswine. This pokemon, despite being jolly, destroys balanced and stall teams (except for skarm) as they have no switchins for it. Its ice stab comes in clutch for the bulky grounds and freeze-dry 2 hit KOs rotom-w and slowbro on the switch in with rocks and destroys quagsire and seismitoad. Its priority is very helpful against tornadus and thundurus and it also somewhat deals with manectric due tu thick-fat. You can try shash as it helps you a lot against excadrill but you will miss a lot of KOs.
THREATS
As I mentioned serveral times skarmory, zapdos and rotom-w are the main counters to mega pinsir but I think this teams covers these threats somewhat well.
The main threats for the team are:
Ability: Thick Fat
EVs: 240 Atk / 16 SpA / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
- Ice Shard
- Earthquake
- Icicle Crash
- Freeze-Dry
After using the last 5 slots for the team I found it a little bit weak to electric types and offense in general (I know I'm getting repetitve) and I also needed a wallbreaker that could help pinsir by weakening his counters or checks so I decided on life orb mamoswine. This pokemon, despite being jolly, destroys balanced and stall teams (except for skarm) as they have no switchins for it. Its ice stab comes in clutch for the bulky grounds and freeze-dry 2 hit KOs rotom-w and slowbro on the switch in with rocks and destroys quagsire and seismitoad. Its priority is very helpful against tornadus and thundurus and it also somewhat deals with manectric due tu thick-fat. You can try shash as it helps you a lot against excadrill but you will miss a lot of KOs.
THREATS
As I mentioned serveral times skarmory, zapdos and rotom-w are the main counters to mega pinsir but I think this teams covers these threats somewhat well.
The main threats for the team are:
- Manectric: If you lose latios and you didn't set up spikes this pokemon is going to be a pain, mamoswine bearly lives an overheat and garchomp is nearly KO by hp ice, klefki can't paralyse it and pinsir is neutralised due to intimidate.
- Excadrill: This pokemon outspeed the whole team if sans is up and yhe only ones that can live a hit are latios (cant KO back), pisnir if the excdrill doesn't have rockslide and you haven't taken any damage and garchomp who is the main check to it. The way of dealing with drill is `reserving garchomp or wearing it down until quick attack or ice shard can KO.
- Mega Slowbro: If you let slowbro set up, you are doomed as the only pokemon that can really damage it is starmie. Latios can't trick it and facing it out with chomp only works if hazards are up so beware of it.
- Poweful Pokemon: Such as azumarill, metagross, loppuny, zard x beacuse, aside of wearing them down with garchomp or t-wave them with klefki I dont have switch ins as this is an offensive team.
P.D: English is not my first lenguage so I apologise in advance for the mistake I surely made, I'll be waiting for your opinions on the team. I reached 1700 with this.
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