[NU RMT] My First Day in Metagame

[darthfader]

Hi guys! I have just been into the Pokemon metagame and I really enjoyed it. However, I am a total noob (I just signed up a couple of days ago)when it comes in team building and strategy. Please rate and give suggestions to the first team I made in NU tier.

I tested this team in many battles. I won some, but lost a lot. Maybe there is something wrong in my strategy/team so if you have some time, help me point it out.

My NU Team at a First Glance

A Closer Look To The Team Members

Pinsir @ Focus Sash
Adamant, Mold Breaker
252 Atk, 252 Speed, 4 HP
X-Scissors
Stealth Rock
Stone Edge
EQ​

He's my lead. I believe he is not commonly used as a lead but he is pretty decent. Can even damage and kill some popular UU leads like Uxie. Try to stealth rock the first turn and then see what else I can do with my remaining HP after the first turn. With the Focus Sash I still have a chance to kill some leads with X-Scissors or EQ.

Glaile @ Leftovers
Bold, Inner Focus
204HP 252 Speed, 52 def
Explosion
Spikes
Toxic
Ice Beam (fail haha)
​

I usually send him after Pinsir. Adding more spikes, hopefully i got three Spikes planted. His role is basically to plant spikes and to use Toxic. I use Explosion to take out/damage heavily strong sweepers.

Typhlosion @ Choice Scarf
Rash, Blaze
4HP, 252SpAtk, 252Speed
Eruption
Fire Blast
Focus Blast
HP Grass
​

He is my revenge killer with his high SpAtk and high speed with Choice Scarf boost. His STABed Eruption and Fire Blast deals a good amount of damage and can even sweep. HP grass for Water types, hoping he could outrun them and Focus Blast for Normal types. It looks like one of the build posted here in Smogon, and I personally think this is a good moveset.

Quagsire @ Leftovers
Adamant Water Absorb
252 HP 120Atk 136Def
EQ
Recover
Ice Punch
Waterfall​

Quagsire, I really love this fellow. He is my switch-in guy. When I do revenge killing with Typhlosion, opponents usually send out a Water type to ditch him out. That's when I switch in Quagsire. With his Water Absorb, their Aqua Jet or Hydro Pump or whatever will be rendered useless. With his bulk, he can withstand a couple of hits. Taking advantage on his decent attack I can even manage to kill my opponents with his other moves. With his nice typing, I can even switch-in into Electrics and revenge them with my EQ if they will not switch out.

Crawdaunt @ Life Orb
Adamant, Shell Armor
52HP, 252Atk, 204Speed
Crunch
Aerial Ace
Waterfall
Superpower​

He's my main physical sweeper. STABed Crunch and Waterfall owns. Aerial Ace to cover his weakness and Superpower to kill other Dark types. However one Thunderbolt and he is dead. But, thanks to Quagsire TB is covered.

Gardevoir @ Choice Specs
Timid, Trace
4HP, 252Speed, 252SpAtk
Psychic
Shadow Ball
Energy Ball
Thunderbolt
​

She is my another revenge killer and special sweeper. She has a decent speed to outrun other Pokemon. Psychic for STAB, Shadow Ball for other Psychics, Energy Ball for Water Types/Ground Types and TB for Water/Flying types. She can really kill a number of Pokemon but Physical attacks will put her down easy though.

That's pretty much all about my team members. I hope you can help me point out any mistakes in movesets/held items and even EV spreads.

How Did I Form The Team?​

I really don't have the idea on how to form a competitive team. My first trial is really a failure. But with a friend's help, I started to form a nicer team (thanks ShinyAzelf). Basically, the team started with the two sweepers I really like. Gardevoir and Crawdaunt.

I fixed their movesets through team testing. Originally, my Gardevoir is a CM Sweeper. But I really found it hard to set-up, especially with a lot of opponents that have Shadow Balls. So I dropped CMing and resulted into Choice Specs. As for Crawdaunt, having his movesets is quite easy. I just have to consider STAB and counter his weaknesses. Also, I haven't battled anyone using Crawdaunt so I thought, why I don't try using him? I mean, he is decent in my personal opinion.

These two provides a good sweep against a number of Pokemons in NU tier. However, they really need some support, especially Crawdaunt who is fragile to TBolts. So that's when I thought of putting my buddy, Quagsire.

Quagsire is a perfect switch in because of his ability and typing. My original Quagsire is Impish. But a friend suggested (thanks again to ShinyAzelf) to make it Adamant. And I found it great. :D Impish Quagsire is boring. With his Adamant nature and decent attack stat, I could actually get some kills with him. Recover + Leftovers is also nice.

But because of his typing, Quag's nemesis will be a grass type(Sceptile T_T). So I thought of something to cover for that. So I resulted into adding Typhlosion.

Fire is an excellent cover for Grass types. But I originally thought of using Charizard (Sunny Day, Solar Beam, Fire Blast and Substitute). Yes, he's pretty fast and pretty strong, but Stealth Rocks kept keeping him 50% when he enters! I couldn't even use Substitute or even set up a Sunny Day with that HP! A rapid spinner would do, but I chose to replace Ch'zard with Typhlosion. (He is my favorite. He was my starter in my very first Pokemon game - Gold. LOL). And I think he'd done better done Charizard in my test battles. He even helped me won one battle by sweeping post-game.

As I've noticed, entry hazards caused many of my defeats. So I thought to use an entry hazard setter too. I have many choices for that, I presume. However, I'm not really into stereotypes so I decided to use Pinsir. I've only seen one Pinsir lead in all of the games that I played. (We're both using Pinsirs haha).

So my team looked like this.

​

Pinsir can Stealth Rock and with Focus Sash, he can survive an OHKO and I could actually make a counter if he is speedy than his opponent. Lucky if my opponent is a Spike Setter because after I planted the stones, I can kill him delaying his Spikes set-up.

So, one team member less. I really don't know what to put so I looked at some RMTs here at Smogon and spotted one interesting lead. Glalie.

I did not use him as my lead though. Actually, his role is just to plant spikes for additional entry hazard. Then use Toxic if he can. And finally, use Explosion to bring a strong opponent down. Explosion is nice because I can actually kill a sweeper without even using my two main sweepers.

So that's how I build my team. If you have some time, please suggest something to improve my team building and point out something wrong with my team too. Thanks.

Annoying Enemies in NU/UU(Seriously, some of them are annoying)
I use this team in battling in UU because I really can't find NU battles oftentimes.​

Spiritomb - I think he is a really good, (correct me if I'm wrong, I'm confused too) Staller. Toxic, Will-O-Wisp. Those moves are annoying. And he is hard to kill to due to his typing.

Mismagius - I don't know how to put him down. I was tempted to switch in Crawdaunt and what I would receive is a TB on the face.

Any pokemon who knows Sleep Powder/Hypnosis/Taunt - they really mess up my set-up. If I wasn't able to plant stones at my first turn, most likely I wouldn't be able to plant it. :C

Any pokemon who can Spin - they mess up my entry hazard strategy which helps Crawdaunt and Typhlosion to sweep.

If you can see other threats that could really ruin my team, please point it out to me too.

What Do I Need To Learn?​

1. I really need to know what is lacking my team. I don't feel lke changing any of my Pokemon though. But if there's a really need to do it, I will be glad to hear it
2. I really need to know if there is something lacking in my current movesets. I can feel there is but I don't know which one.
3. I want to learn nice strategies to counter Sleepers, Mismagius and Spiritomb. They annoy me the most (LOL)

Thanks for reading and rating my team. I really want to learn more about competitive gameplay so help me out guys! Special thanks for ShinyAzelf!

 

[Mysterious Man]

I'm not the best rater around, but here goes:

If your using this in UU, I can see Moltres giving you some problems. Pinsir speed ties with the standard special sweeper Moltres and can only OHKO with a shaky 80% accuracy SE, Glalie falls to it's fire STABs, while Quagsire and Crawdaunt falls to HP Grass. The only way you can take it down is by revenge killing with Gardevoir, where it might already be behind a sub. To remedy this, I suggest you run HP Rock over HP Grass on Typhlosion.

Speaking of Typhlosion, I don't recommend you using Eruption on one that's not a lead. Stealth Rock is very popular these days, and cuts 25% each switch in. Without a spinner, Eruption would probably be just a waste of a moveslot most of the time. Overheat would be a good choice over it, where it would make Typhlosion more of a hit-and-runner. Flamethrower would probably be a decent replacement over Fire Blast as well if you don't mind the power drop, although that's your decision (I'm one of those accuracy freaks e.e). Either way, if you keep your current Typhlosion moveset or follow my suggestions, you may want to change it's nature from Rash to Modest (+SpAtk -Atk) and move the HP ev's to DEF, making it's HP odd and allowing it to switch in 5 times with Stealth Rock on the field.

Crawdaunt is too slow and frail on the special side to do much other then hit hard on the switch. If you want to keep Crawdaunt, I'd advise you to change to a DDance set that looks something like this:

Crawdaunt @ Life Orb
Hyper Cutter
Jolly
4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Speed
Crunch
Waterfall
Aerial Ace
Dragon Dance

With this set, Crawdaunt becomes more of a late game sweeper, when things like Hitmontop that can threaten it are taken out. Hyper Cutter is for annoying Intimidate's. Jolly + 252 Spe EV's allows Crawdaunt to outspeed unscarfed Rotom and Mismagius after 1 DD.

And last, you may want to replace Glalie for another member, as you have no rapid spin blocker to prevent your spikes from being spin'd :[

EDIT: If you still have problems with Mismagius, you may just want to scrap Typhlosion all together for Houndoom:

Houndoom @ Choice Scarf
Flash Fire
Mild
84 Atk / 252 SpAtk / 174 Speed
Overheat
Crunch / Sucker Punch
HP Rock
Flamethrower / Fire Blast etc.

With this, you lose Focus Blast (Which I really hate, again due to the accuracy). But now, you can take down Mismagius with either Crunch and Sucker Punch. They both have the same power, but Sucker Punch has priority but may allow things to set up on you. HP Rock is for the same reason as above (Moltres). The last move is really just filler.

 

[Ice-eyes]

Much of that last post is redundant, MM, because this is an NU RMT and therefore not concerned with the UU metagame. Typhlosion should be Modest, though, and Crawdaunt should be DD.
Here's what I would do.

Firstly, I don't really think you need the Pinsir lead. I would suggest removing it and Quagsire for a Sandslash, which could serve as your physical wall as well as setting up Stealth Rock. It's a solid lead and can also Rapid Spin to support Typhlosion.

The set I would suggest is this:
Sandslash @ Leftovers
Sand Veil
Impish (+Def, -SpA)
252 HP/252 Def/4 Spe
Earthquake
Stone Edge
Stealth Rock
Rapid Spin

I would also suggest something like Choice Scarf Primeape. This would let you abuse Spikes as well as baiting Slowking so that Crawdaunt can get in for free and set up a Dragon Dance (a set I really would use). It would also let you revenge-kill Espeon - you really have trouble with non-Choice variants packing Signal Beam. The set is:
Primeape @ Choice Scarf
Vital Spirit
Adamant (+Atk, -SpA)
252 Atk/4 Def/252 Spe
Close Combat
U-Turn
Stone Edge
Ice Punch

Your Gardevoir could also do with a few changes. Specs Gardevoir is very vulnerable to Skuntank trapping - I would try this set:
Gardevoir @ Life Orb
Synchronise
Timid (+Spe, -Atk)
4 HP/252 SpA/252 Spe
Psychic
Focus Blast
Shadow Ball
Will-o-Wisp

This set will allow you to still hit hard while giving you great coverage and allowing you to burn Skuntank, which helps your Typhlosion avoid revenge-killing.

 

[Mysterious Man]

Ah, sorry. I assumed it was a NU team used in the UU tier from what he said in the threat list. I don't normally play NU, but off the top of my head I could see Ninetales being a problem (coming in on Typhlosion and threatening to Hypnosis / Nasty Plot and proceding to sweep with fire STAB and Energy Ball) although they're not commonly seen(?).

 

[TPM]

You said that you hate Rapid Spin and Sleep moves, well Banette prevents both of those. Too bad it sucks...

 

[darthfader]

Thank you guys for your suggestions. I would try out all your advices and see what fits me best. :D

 

[Acklow]

Try running Dusclops as a Spinblocker, he'd be a bit better than Banette. Plus he can wall.

Here's a set you could use:

Dusclops @ Leftovers
Nature: Impish
Ability: Pressure
Ev's: 252 Hp/28 Atk/228 Def (Or SpDef based on how you want to wall)
Moveset:
-Pain Split
-Will-o-Wisp
-Earthquake/Fire Punch
-Ice Punch/Thunder Punch

This set would run almost exactly the same as it's big brother, Dusknoir. But the nice thing about Dusclops is he's no slouch either. Having 130 Base Def and SpDef is pretty good.

As for any other rates...well I really don't have any, making sure you have a Spin Blocker can be vital to a team's success, especially if you are hoping to make your 2HKOs into OHKOs with your sweepers.

 

[Ice-eyes]

This team is pretty offensive - an offensive spinblocker is probably a better idea. Perhaps something like Sub Haunter, which also doesn't fear Skuntank too much?

 

[darthfader]

Crawdaunt can't learn DD anymore.. :C
I've tried your suggestions and it worked.. But then suddenly Crawdaunt can't DD anymore.
I'm thinking to replace him with a nice physical sweeper.

Thanks again.

 

[Acklow]

Are you sure? I just checked the Smogon Pokedex and it said it can. When doing the Team Builder, make sure you aren't clicking Standard Metagame, and you are clicking CAP Server. That way you get HGSS moves (Crawdaunt got that move in HGSS).