Screw Typing

Vemane

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ORIGINS:
He was but a mutt, synthesized from a husk and a giant. He had strength matched by no other, but was forced to bear the shell of his lesser half. He was banished to the lower world, yet He still had an inherent need to destruct. He hadn't another outlet bar destruction, so he summoned an army of those in his very position: The stealth rock and pursuit weak Victory Pokemon, The seven weakness Frost Tree Pokemon, The pursuit and u-turn weak Mysterious Pokemon, and The pursuit and u-turn weak Psi Pokemon. Ready to unleash Chaos, Kyurem set his sights for the world. But just then, another approached. The Abundance Pokemon. Kyurem was prepared to strike, knowing that Landorus certainly did not fit the role of misfit. As it got closer, he began to lower his guard; Landorus was ugly as shit. Understanding the beast's quarrel with the world, he was allowed to embark with the five. Thus was born the army that would attempt to end life as it was known.



Purpose:
The abilities of each typing have become ingrained in the minds of competitive battlers: don't use ice types, make sure you have a steel type, psychic=pursuit weak, etc. And quite frankly, I believe this is a greatly overstated concept. Thus, I set out to create a team compounding allegedly awful typings. Not only that, but I also wanted said team to be lacking in allegedly favorable typings which are "so vital" in checking today's threats. The result contained two ice types and three psychic types, one of which only adds to the stealth rock weakness. Despite this, it has brought me quite a bit of success with around an 8:1 win/loss record. Besides ladder success, though, it has confirmed my belief that, while obviously important, typing is inherently insignificant when looking at an entire pokemon. So without further ado, here is the team:



Strategy:
In lieu of a solid win condition, the team is based around getting the opponent in high-pressure situations, so prediction plays an above average role. If victini or kyurem get a free switch in, the opponent is frequently very hard pressed to do anything besides sack something or switch in a (hopeful) resist, allowing alakazam to clean up later.



The Team:
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Kyurem-Black @ Life Orb
Trait: Teravolt
EVs: 32 HP / 232 SAtk / 244 Spd
Mild Nature
- Roost
- Earth Power
- Blizzard
- Fusion Bolt

Though I had been using this set before, the more optimal ev spread was taken from darkblazer's post in the "Next Best Thing" discussion. The general idea is to switch Kyurem in and wreck shit, plain and simple. It's "suboptimal" ice typing allows it to spam hilariously strong stab blizzards, while also gaining stab on half of the renowned bolt-beam combo. To top it all off, said bolt-beam combo hits from both side of the spectrum, incredibly hard, might I add! Earth Power rounds out coverage, nabbing the ko on things like rotom-w and heatran. Roost provides some nice healing to recover damage from either stealth rock or just previous skirmishes. I find myself not using it as often as I would like though, and definitely miss the utility of sub. With sub, though, I would need leftovers, and then would miss the power of life orb. Either way, an integral part of the team that very often does his job of dismantling the that of the opponent.


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Victini @ Choice Band
Trait: Victory Star
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spd / 4 Def
Jolly Nature
IVs: 30 Atk / 30 Def
- V-create
- Bolt Strike
- U-turn
- Zen Headbutt

Choice Band victini is STRONG. It is the second half of my pressure duo. If it gets in, the opponent has literally no safe switch ins as v-create is doing over 50% to just about everything. If stealth rocks aren't up and I feel lazy, I'll click u-turn and tilt the all important momentum even moreso in my favor. A rather common situation that victini finds itself in is being out against ferrothorn with a politoed in the wings. The fact of the matter is, this is essentially a checkmate for the opponent. They can either lose their weather starter or their most valuable wall/utility pokemon. Victini is also my initial answer to breloom, as a quick zen headbutt will do away with it. Of course, there are those irritating sash variants, but those people aren't going anywhere in life anyway so they can have victini I guess.

Here is a rather common situation that I absolutely love:
---- withdrew Ferrothorn!
---- sent out Rotom-Wash!
Pointed stones dug into the foe's Rotom-Wash!
Victini used V-create!
It's not very effective... The foe's Rotom-Wash lost 61% of its health!
Victini's Defense fell!
Victini's Special Defense fell!
Victini's Speed fell!
The foe's Rotom-Wash restored HP using its Leftovers!

And then I outspeed still so I can 2hko or take out a switch in


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Abomasnow @ Life Orb
Trait: Snow Warning
EVs: 252 Atk / 172 SAtk / 84 Spd
Lonely Nature
- Wood Hammer
- Ice Shard
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Protect

Abomasnow is a good pokemon, period. It deals with so many pokemon, and it is very hard to switch into. It is plagued with two terrible typings, especially together, but it also has a nice water resistance and... um... an ice neutrality or something. But it doesn't matter because typing is insignificant. Aboma applies further pressure to the opponent while also setting up the much-desired hail that not only chips away at the opponent while canceling out their weather, but also allows me to blizzard spam! Protect gives me the benefit of scouting CB-scizor and rakion and the like while accumulating residual damage. Fairly standard and straightforward.


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Alakazam @ Focus Sash
Trait: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 SAtk / 252 Spd / 4 Def
Timid Nature
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Psyshock
- Shadow Ball
- Focus Blast

A long time ago I had another pokemon here... I do not remember what said pokemon was. But now its alakazam! Since I have nothing that can really take hits, especially on the special side, alakazam plays the much desired role of revenge killer, while also being able to clean up sweep and compound my darned weaknesses. Oh well. Hidden Power ice further accentuates its role as a revenge killer, because it can kill those dragons at +1 that I have no ability to tank without a steel type. Alakazam is essentially the glue of the team. Although he usually doesn't go out until later, he is what prevents the whole thing from falling apart. Furthermore, the pressure of his mere existance and the fact that he can't be 1hkod is also helpful psychologically even when he is not out.


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Starmie @ Leftovers
Trait: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 SAtk / 252 Spd / 4 HP
Timid Nature
- Blizzard
- Surf
- Thunderbolt
- Rapid Spin

Yet another psychic type! And also a rapid spinner because, let's face it, stealth rocks sucks especially with all of the switching my team requires. I really wish analytic functioned properly on PS, then I'd use that and 2hko celebis and such on the switch, but until then natural cure gets the job done. Starmie is usually the one that I sack if something strong and fast comes in because its fantastic coverage is somewhat redundant to the rest of the team, and it is only here due to its essential utility (and psychic typing). Even so, it hits surprisingly hard and is fast enough to help deal with non-scarfed latis and the like, things that gives the team some trouble.


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Landorus-Therian (M) @ Leftovers
Trait: Intimidate
EVs: 252 Def / 252 HP / 4 SAtk
Relaxed Nature
- Stealth Rock
- U-turn
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Earthquake

Ok, hear me out. I'm not using lando because of his typing, I'm using him because I needed something with intimidate that could wall something at least while also hitting back sufficiently hard. The pokemon with all of these attributes, unfortunately, had a decent typing. HP Ice kills dragons and that asshole breloom. U-turn, especially since lando is pretty slow, allows for even more high-pressure shenanigans. He is so good at stuff, really. If the opponent has a physical attacker, whether it be salamence or mamoswine, lando can come in and neuter it. It is the only inherently defensive mon on my team and, as such, serves as an incredibly valuable pivot to tank hits and provide momentum all the same.​



Importable:
Kyurem-Black @ Life Orb
Trait: Teravolt
EVs: 32 HP / 232 SAtk / 244 Spd
Mild Nature
- Roost
- Earth Power
- Blizzard
- Fusion Bolt

Victini @ Choice Band
Trait: Victory Star
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spd / 4 Def
Jolly Nature
IVs: 30 Atk / 30 Def
- V-create
- Bolt Strike
- U-turn
- Zen Headbutt

Abomasnow @ Life Orb
Trait: Snow Warning
EVs: 252 Atk / 172 SAtk / 84 Spd
Lonely Nature
- Wood Hammer
- Ice Shard
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Protect

Alakazam @ Focus Sash
Trait: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 SAtk / 252 Spd / 4 Def
Timid Nature
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Psyshock
- Shadow Ball
- Focus Blast

Starmie @ Leftovers
Trait: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 SAtk / 252 Spd / 4 HP
Timid Nature
- Blizzard
- Surf
- Thunderbolt
- Rapid Spin

Landorus-Therian (M) @ Leftovers
Trait: Intimidate
EVs: 252 Def / 252 HP / 4 SAtk
Relaxed Nature
- Stealth Rock
- U-turn
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Earthquake



Closing:
Thanks for reading! Feel free to suggest and the like, or tell me what you think if anything. Be sure to leave a luvdisc if you enjoyed! Threatlist will be added in next post.​
 
Threatlist:​

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Shut up, Metagross is totally a legitimate threat. Kyurem just barely misses the ko with earth power and landorus is scared of ice punch (only somewhat, but I need him to tank other attacks too so I don't like him weakened). Victini can make short work of him, but earthquake and flash fire pokes are yucky. Can usually be played around rather easily, but certainly something to look out for.


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I know I had this coming, but I have nothing to tank special attacks (especially dragon, since I have no steels). As such, these two can cause me trouble. To be honest, 80% of the time, I will just have to sack something and proceed from there with a starmie switch in or w/e. They do require a free switch in though since aboma (kind of), starmie, and alakazam can all make short work of them, so they can be played around (double switches make this very easy). even so, I will continue to resist the urge to throw in a scizor and hope for the best.


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Scizor is somewhat easily handled by my team, but one crit on landorus or victini and he can mean trouble (which, admittedly, has happened more than once). Aboma can surprise ko with hp fire and do some fun scouting with protect. Starmie can tank bpunches. Lando walls it. Victini can take bpunches and give me huge momentum. Kazam can, I suppose, survive a hit and knock off a good amount with fblast. I suppose I have scizor checked, but it can still prove troublesome.


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Volcorona is easy peasy if it's a life orb/etc variant: hail pretty much kills it. I can usually deal with those even past +2 (alakazam, etc.). The bulky variants, however, (courtesy of kidogo) sweep me clean because I just can't do enough damage



​
 
Brick Break

Very solid team. I have literally only one thing to say. Two actually.

1) Replace Zen Headbutt on Victini with Break Break. It fucks up Tyranitar.

2) Replace HP Ice with HP Fire on Landorus-T. It still 2HKOs Breloom and does a lot to Scizor.
 
Looking at the team, one big problem that I see almost immediately is Keldeo. Keldeo can hit your entire team SE if it has HP Bug / Ghost, and hits 4/6 without it. While I guess you do have some answers to it (Kyu-B can take a hit, although not well, and KO back, Zam can live a hit thanks to Sash and KO back, Starmie resists both STABs and hits back hard with TBolt, although I would say Psychic > TBolt because Psychic OHKOs) To help with this, I'd put Psychic on Starmie over something, probably Thunderbolt or Blizzard (you have a lot of Ice moves on your team, so I don't think loosing Blizzard is a huge deal. You have Hydro for Ground-types anyways), as TBolt only 2HKOs Keldeo while Keldeo does a solid 42.36 - 50.38% without a boosting item, meaning that if you let Starmie get worn down a bit, Keldeo can beat it if you have TBolt. However, Psychic clean OHKO's Keldeo.
So yeah, Psychic > Blizzard or Thunderbolt, probably the former
 
This team needs Defensive Starmie in my opinion. Starmie is the only member on your team that can take a strong Fire attack, for example, or switch into Keldeo with some degree of safety. Also, if Starmie goes down you are horribly maimed by Stealth Rock. Being able to Recover and to switch better into resisted hits is vital to keep your team healthy by removing hazards consistently. Also, by carrying Scald, those Pursuit trappers have a good chance to be rendered useless on the switch, which greatly increases Starmie's likelihood to perform Rapid Spins later in the game. Not being able to 2HKO Celebi or anything is really not an issue; if Celebi comes in and you predict it, you can just get a Spin, or double switch as appropriate. I'd pretty much prefer a free switch for CB Victini rather than a non-STAB Blizzard that may very well miss or fail to deal any significant damage against the appropriate switch-in.

Starmie @ Leftovers | Natural Cure
Timid | 252 HP / 24 Def / 8 SpA / 224 Spe
- Scald
- Blizzard / Thunder Wave / Psyshock / Toxic / Thunderbolt / Ice Beam / HP Fire / whatever
- Recover
- Rapid Spin

I really like the rest of the team, though. Hope my suggestion is useful somehow, I guess I'll test the team a bit more and let you know if I find anything else that can be helpful. Good luck!
 
hi,

honestly i've never liked hail teams with two ice types, because defensively they suck and ice type doesnt really "abuse" of everything unless you use blizzard which isnt the best move anyway, ice beam has more pp and doesnt miss without the hail... but lets work with what we have here.

starting from your weather summoner, abomasnow, i think you should really change your item. Life orb is the worst item for a pokemon that needs to stay alive as long as possible to check other weather, not to mention that with wood hammer and sr it will be dead in one turn. I would just use leftovers isntead of expert belt if you need to do a certain damage on scizor or more damages to dragons, also remember to put more speed on abomasnow, probably 120 evs in speed due to speed creeps of jellicent and tyranitar.

Now you have a pretty big weakness to latios which can spam draco meteors too freely, so my suggestion would be to try scarf Jirachi instead of alakazam, which seems pretty useless to me, everything it does is already done by other members of your team so i see no reason not to change it. For jirachi just use Iron head / Fire punch / trick / U-turn. You dont need ice punch because landorus-t and abomasnow are already enough to beat dragonite and salamence. trick lets you beat common walls, while u-turn also helps giving you more momentum, fire punch to hit ferrothorn and scizor.

Now i would put a more bulky starmie instead of your because its the only thing that resists keldeo's stab, so you need to take at least 2 hit of scarf keldeo with starmie. Try max hp/ max speed timid starmie with the standard scald / psyshock / rapid spin / recover. It will also solve somewhat your weakness to rainstall teams being able to spin more reliably.

As a last thing, i think kyurem-b without a sub its just a worst hydreygon, which is already bad. I know the power of life orb its good but, kyurem-b should almost always have a substitute in those type of sets, because if you dont use it you will be easily revnege killed by everything faster (which means, half of the metagame). Give a try to sub instead of roost, and if you do of course change your item to leftovers in order to do more sub. Hope this helps. gl
 
deadflame said:
Very solid team. I have literally only one thing to say. Two actually.

1) Replace Zen Headbutt on Victini with Break Break. It fucks up Tyranitar.

2) Replace HP Ice with HP Fire on Landorus-T. It still 2HKOs Breloom and does a lot to Scizor.
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Hi! Thanks for looking! My only qualm with replacing zen headbutt with brick break is that was generally my go-to move against rain teams/etc. that had a thundy-t waiting in the wings to use my bolt strike. Tyrannitar is already getting 2hkod by v-create or u-turn, and he really can't threaten my team (although it doesn't seem as such) with lando in the wings and almost all of my team being able to take huge chunks off of him (aboma outspeeds and kos I believe). I will certainly consider, though! :)

In regards to hp fire on lando, hp ice was only a little bonus when dealing with breloom. It was also vital in dealing with dragon dancing dragons which, without stone edge or hp ice, can set up freely on the beast. Earthquake is a guarenteed 2hko on scizor in hail anyway, so he is generally handled. I definitely see where you are coming from though, and thanks for the rate!


Looking at the team, one big problem that I see almost immediately is Keldeo. Keldeo can hit your entire team SE if it has HP Bug / Ghost, and hits 4/6 without it. While I guess you do have some answers to it (Kyu-B can take a hit, although not well, and KO back, Zam can live a hit thanks to Sash and KO back, Starmie resists both STABs and hits back hard with TBolt, although I would say Psychic > TBolt because Psychic OHKOs) To help with this, I'd put Psychic on Starmie over something, probably Thunderbolt or Blizzard (you have a lot of Ice moves on your team, so I don't think loosing Blizzard is a huge deal. You have Hydro for Ground-types anyways), as TBolt only 2HKOs Keldeo while Keldeo does a solid 42.36 - 50.38% without a boosting item, meaning that if you let Starmie get worn down a bit, Keldeo can beat it if you have TBolt. However, Psychic clean OHKO's Keldeo.
So yeah, Psychic > Blizzard or Thunderbolt, probably the former
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Hi! Keldeo, surprisingly, has actually been extremely easy to handle. Aboma can scout its moves (if choice locked) with protect, allowing me to switch to an appropriate mon (I have plenty water resists, and starmie and lando can deal with secret sword). Expert belt sets are fantastic because they are piss weak and I can just outspeed and ko easily :P I do like a psychic move over thunderbolt though :o Especially when analytic is fixed, I don't believe I'll need it to ko jellicent and such on the switch. I don't want to replace blizzard because starmie is my main answer to non-scarf special dragons, so I need it to be able to outspeed and ko. Will definitely make the change to psychic though. Thanks!

This team needs Defensive Starmie in my opinion. Starmie is the only member on your team that can take a strong Fire attack, for example, or switch into Keldeo with some degree of safety. Also, if Starmie goes down you are horribly maimed by Stealth Rock. Being able to Recover and to switch better into resisted hits is vital to keep your team healthy by removing hazards consistently. Also, by carrying Scald, those Pursuit trappers have a good chance to be rendered useless on the switch, which greatly increases Starmie's likelihood to perform Rapid Spins later in the game. Not being able to 2HKO Celebi or anything is really not an issue; if Celebi comes in and you predict it, you can just get a Spin, or double switch as appropriate. I'd pretty much prefer a free switch for CB Victini rather than a non-STAB Blizzard that may very well miss or fail to deal any significant damage against the appropriate switch-in.

Starmie @ Leftovers | Natural Cure
Timid | 252 HP / 24 Def / 8 SpA / 224 Spe
- Scald
- Blizzard / Thunder Wave / Psyshock / Toxic / Thunderbolt / Ice Beam / HP Fire / whatever
- Recover
- Rapid Spin

I really like the rest of the team, though. Hope my suggestion is useful somehow, I guess I'll test the team a bit more and let you know if I find anything else that can be helpful. Good luck!
Click to expand...

Hi! I think you are correct. I desperately want some other form of defensive pivot without sacrificing the offensive utility of any of my team members, and I believe defensive starmie fits the bill. My only concern, as expressed above, though, is the lack of coverage resulting from dropping either blizzard of psyshock. Without psyshock, I can't hit keldeo, despite walling it, but without blizzard my dragon problem is only further accentuated. Would it be best to run one of the two over recover (when I previously ran bulky starm, I rarely used it anyway, and I feel as if on this team using the turn to recover when I could be switching to kyurem or victini to regain momentum is not favorable)? Thanks!

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EDIT:
Made the following changes:

1. Life Orb Kyurem => Sub+3 attack+leftover variant.
I really did miss the utility of sub and never had time to roost, so although it misses out on some nice kos, having sub patches my weaknesses to special dragons extraordinarily (ex: http://pokemonshowdown.com/replay/ou-20184944 ), while being super great in general.

2. Tbolt => Psyshock on starmie
I had tried out defensive starmie and it just did not hit hard enough whatsoever (which is what had turned me off from it initially as well). Changing tbolt to psyshock though has been helpful in multiple situations though. I did keep scald as, although not as strong as surf, has great utility and keeps starmie somewhat bulky.


Thanks guys. Still looking for more suggestions!
 
Neliel said:
hi,

honestly i've never liked hail teams with two ice types, because defensively they suck and ice type doesnt really "abuse" of everything unless you use blizzard which isnt the best move anyway, ice beam has more pp and doesnt miss without the hail.
Click to expand...

With that mindset you might as well run hail on some random pokemon instead of Abomasnow. Ice types aren't meant to be used defensively unless they have exceptional bulk like Kyu-B.

Back on topic. Excellent team, I'm using it and it's really fun to play with.
I recommend switching from HP Ice to HP Fire on Alakazam (unless you do that on Lando-T) because it tends to bait Scizor a lot from what I've seen. Everything else has been covered by the other posters.
 
I think you're overplaying how bad the typings are =P It's actually pretty standard for a Hail team; if you replace Victini with SpDef Heatran and Alakazam with Latias, it really is the standard build that people have been using since bubbly posted his RMT ages back. Doing that would make the team much more solid, but it does detract from your offensive presence and originality of the team so I'm guessing you don't want to do that.

Some other suggestions...you could try Psych Up > HP Ice on Alakazam, which screws Volcarona if it has enough boosts and gives you other potential sweeps. HP Rock is another option. Change Life Orb on Aboma to Leftovers, LO doesn't get any particularly useful KO's after SR and Hail damage.

I think that's everything, it's a fun team so congrats and gl
 
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