Hello fellow members of Smogon. Today I bring you a team me and my friend LogicError came up with together. Its a balanced offensive team centered around the newly released shadow tag Gothitelle, a Pokemon capable of effectively "Trapping" foes and eliminating them so that other sweepers can take advantage of their absence. When using the team, the highest I managed to ladder on main PO server was 1301. Hopefully with your help, we can break this team into the 1400's and maybe even higher. This team showcases a new style of team play known as trapping and its benefits. Without any further introduction lets get into the team building process.
Team Building Process
I started out with nothing more than a simple sub and three attacks Gothitelle set
Realizing that I would need a pokemon to remove toxic spikes and other hazards off my field as well as a toxic absorber for Gothitelle we decided to use a Tentacruel as our hazard remover and "physical wall".
Tentacruel needs rain to activate rain dish so we decided to pair it up with a Politoed. With Rain now introduced, we decided to continue to build the team with rain as a focal point but one that did not distract from the idea of "trapping". Being that we wanted rain to stay on the field, we decided to use the politoed set most effective at surviving, the bold physically defensive set.
Scizor was bought into the team to take the bug, dark, and ghost type attacks aimed at Gothitelle but also to lure in counters and then U-Turn out of them so that Gothitelle can trap them. Similar to what Drag mag does with magnezone + any other dragon.
Scizor, Politoed's rain support and Shadow Tag Gothitelle almost screamed "use Rotom-W!" at me. Why? Because it forms part of a volt turn core, takes the fire attacks aimed at scizor, the ground type attacks aimed at Tentacruel, has its hydro pump boosted due to rain and can volt switch out of its counters into Gothitelle who traps them. Due to the teams inablity to cope with Tornadus-T and Genesect to a certain degree, we decided to use a specially defensive set to better check these pokemon.
Finally seeing as how much rain contributed to the team, we wanted to make sure we protected it. That's why we went ahead and placed Dugtrio on the team. It earthquakes Nintetales, reversals/earthquakes Tyranitar and Stone Edges Abomasnow although Abomasnow needs to take prior damage to be Ko'ed.
At this point, after much testing, I decided to go with a 4 attacks Gothitelle set. One that included Hp Fire since I was particularly weak to Ferrothorn. That changed over the course of practicing on PO and blossomed into a Choice Specs set with Trick.
I also at this point in time decided to swap out scizor for genesect in order to better check dragon types in general .
With that in mind, lets now move onto the team's sets.
Pokémon: Gothitelle @Choice Specs
Ability: Shadow Tag
EVs: 252 Hp/ 252 Special Attack/ 4 def
Nature: Modest
- Psychic
- Thunderbolt
- Trick
- Hidden Power [Fire]
[What does Gothitelle bring to this team? In addition to being a rather bulky attacker, Gothitelle's main job on this team is trapping weakened foes and ko'ing them with the appropriate move. Think of it as an absolute user of pursuit, with a type of pursuit that changes according to which attack is best on the foe. Jellicent? Thunderbolt, Tentacruel? Psychic, Conkeldurr? Psychic. You get the idea more or less. This pokemons moveset is almost self explanatory. Modest lets it hit as hard as an unboosted Gothitelle possibly can while 4 main coverage attacks allow Gothitelle to score super effective hits on a variety of foes to defeat.]
Pokémon: Tentacruel @Black Sludge
Ability: Rain Dish
EVs: 252 Hp/ 148 Def/ 108 speed
Nature: Bold
- Scald
- Sludge Bomb
- Protect
- Rapid Spin
[Tentacruel is sometimes the mvp of this team honestly. Between its utility and ability to check many threats such as Scizor, Breloom, Keldeo, and Politoed, Tentacruel continously performs its job of spinning away entry hazards from my side of the field. Let me guess, the ev's confuse you? You've raised a good question. The ev's listed here allow my Tentacruel to outspeed jolly max speed Breloom by 1 point and sludge bomb it accordingly. Part of the reason why Tentacruel is on this team is becuase of the savagness of the newly introduced Techniloom. Aside from that here is how well Tentacruel fairs against most spinblockers:
Tentacruel vs Gengar ( in rain)
Scald with boost first turn on sub
Protect second turn on disable
Eventually it'll wear itself down
Tentacruel vs Water Absorb Jellicent
Rapid spin on incoming Jellicent (most likely)
Sludge Bomb continously until poison
Spam protect until it switches out
Tentacruel vs Chandelure
Scald right away and score a 2KO
As you can see, Tentacruel fairs pretty well even against it's opposition. For role's sake, its main job however is spinning]
Pokémon: Politoed @Leftovers
Ability: Drizzle
EVs: 252 Hp/ 252 Def/ 4 sp def
Nature: Bold
- Scald
- Ice Beam
- Toxic
- Perish Song
[Politoed is on the team for one reason and one reason only: To Summon Rain! Anything else it does is a bonus. One of the things that I like about this Politoed set is that if I Perish Song an Opponent and then switch to Gothitelle, I can stall out the turns until Perish Song is 0. Its gimmiky but it works sometimes against more defensive threats. Toxic is for Gastrodon, Jellicent, and Keldeo switch ins. Ice Beam hits grass switch ins hard but also gives me a way to deal nice damage to Dragonite and Salamence from which Politoed can take a +1 Outrage from.]
Pokémon: Genesect @ Choice Scarf
Ability:Download
EVs: 8 atk/252 Sp atk/ 248 speed
Nature: Naive
- U-Turn
- Flamethrower
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Beam
Genesect is true revenger. Being able to take on choice locked dragons and ice beam them or simply U-Turn out into Gothitelle or Dugtrio for me to trap, Genesect continously performs its role of special scout and lead time and time again. Next to Rotom-W, I lead with this guy the most. He comes in after doing nothing and sets up giving me a helpful boost against the opponent. The moveset is tailored for as much coverage as possible and is the standard for Choice Scarf Genesct. It forms the infamous Dugtrio + Gene offensive core and a Volt-Turn core together with Rotom-W.
Pokémon: Rotom-W @Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP/ 252 Special Defense/ 6 Def
Nature: Calm
- Hydro Pump
- Volt Switch
- Will-o-Wisp
- Pain Split
[Specially Defensive Rotom-W is probably one of the best Tornadus-T counters out there right now. Thats the main job Rotom-w does on this team for me. But I'd be lying if I told ya it stopped there. This thing is capable of sponging hits from many foes. An awesome rain counter, Rotom-w is a specially defensive pivot which can also switch into one of my trappers for a good match up. It forms the infamous "Volt-turn" core of scizor + rotom-w. It also handles Specially offensive Genesect quite nicely while maintaining its health high with pain split. An awesome utility counter to one of the most deadly threats in BW 2 OU, Rotom-W also sometimes serves as the MVP of the team.]
Pokémon Dugtrio @Focus Sash
Ability: Arena Trap
EVs: 252 Atk/ 252 Speed/ 4 Hp
Nature: Jolly
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge
- Reversal
[My final trapper and weather war winner. Dugtrio has sometimes won me games right at the start either by setting up stealth rocks or removing an opposing weather inducer. This guy is pretty versatile with its moveset either being supportive or offensively checking non scarfed terrakion, weakened jirachi, jolteon, Tyranitar, Ninetales and a few others. Its main job on the team is protecting my weather so if it does that, then that's all I could ask for from the three moles.]
Conclusion:
Part of why I wrote this RMT is to introduce the concept of "Trapping" in BW 2 OU where strategies like hyper offense and rain dominate. Its a really underrated strategy that can effectively be put into use and if used correctly can devastate the meta. Here is the exportable code so that you too may try the team out^^:
Team Building Process
I started out with nothing more than a simple sub and three attacks Gothitelle set
Realizing that I would need a pokemon to remove toxic spikes and other hazards off my field as well as a toxic absorber for Gothitelle we decided to use a Tentacruel as our hazard remover and "physical wall".
Tentacruel needs rain to activate rain dish so we decided to pair it up with a Politoed. With Rain now introduced, we decided to continue to build the team with rain as a focal point but one that did not distract from the idea of "trapping". Being that we wanted rain to stay on the field, we decided to use the politoed set most effective at surviving, the bold physically defensive set.
Scizor was bought into the team to take the bug, dark, and ghost type attacks aimed at Gothitelle but also to lure in counters and then U-Turn out of them so that Gothitelle can trap them. Similar to what Drag mag does with magnezone + any other dragon.
Scizor, Politoed's rain support and Shadow Tag Gothitelle almost screamed "use Rotom-W!" at me. Why? Because it forms part of a volt turn core, takes the fire attacks aimed at scizor, the ground type attacks aimed at Tentacruel, has its hydro pump boosted due to rain and can volt switch out of its counters into Gothitelle who traps them. Due to the teams inablity to cope with Tornadus-T and Genesect to a certain degree, we decided to use a specially defensive set to better check these pokemon.
Finally seeing as how much rain contributed to the team, we wanted to make sure we protected it. That's why we went ahead and placed Dugtrio on the team. It earthquakes Nintetales, reversals/earthquakes Tyranitar and Stone Edges Abomasnow although Abomasnow needs to take prior damage to be Ko'ed.
At this point, after much testing, I decided to go with a 4 attacks Gothitelle set. One that included Hp Fire since I was particularly weak to Ferrothorn. That changed over the course of practicing on PO and blossomed into a Choice Specs set with Trick.
I also at this point in time decided to swap out scizor for genesect in order to better check dragon types in general .
With that in mind, lets now move onto the team's sets.
Pokémon: Gothitelle @Choice Specs
Ability: Shadow Tag
EVs: 252 Hp/ 252 Special Attack/ 4 def
Nature: Modest
- Psychic
- Thunderbolt
- Trick
- Hidden Power [Fire]
[What does Gothitelle bring to this team? In addition to being a rather bulky attacker, Gothitelle's main job on this team is trapping weakened foes and ko'ing them with the appropriate move. Think of it as an absolute user of pursuit, with a type of pursuit that changes according to which attack is best on the foe. Jellicent? Thunderbolt, Tentacruel? Psychic, Conkeldurr? Psychic. You get the idea more or less. This pokemons moveset is almost self explanatory. Modest lets it hit as hard as an unboosted Gothitelle possibly can while 4 main coverage attacks allow Gothitelle to score super effective hits on a variety of foes to defeat.]
Pokémon: Tentacruel @Black Sludge
Ability: Rain Dish
EVs: 252 Hp/ 148 Def/ 108 speed
Nature: Bold
- Scald
- Sludge Bomb
- Protect
- Rapid Spin
[Tentacruel is sometimes the mvp of this team honestly. Between its utility and ability to check many threats such as Scizor, Breloom, Keldeo, and Politoed, Tentacruel continously performs its job of spinning away entry hazards from my side of the field. Let me guess, the ev's confuse you? You've raised a good question. The ev's listed here allow my Tentacruel to outspeed jolly max speed Breloom by 1 point and sludge bomb it accordingly. Part of the reason why Tentacruel is on this team is becuase of the savagness of the newly introduced Techniloom. Aside from that here is how well Tentacruel fairs against most spinblockers:
Tentacruel vs Gengar ( in rain)
Scald with boost first turn on sub
Protect second turn on disable
Eventually it'll wear itself down
Tentacruel vs Water Absorb Jellicent
Rapid spin on incoming Jellicent (most likely)
Sludge Bomb continously until poison
Spam protect until it switches out
Tentacruel vs Chandelure
Scald right away and score a 2KO
As you can see, Tentacruel fairs pretty well even against it's opposition. For role's sake, its main job however is spinning]
Pokémon: Politoed @Leftovers
Ability: Drizzle
EVs: 252 Hp/ 252 Def/ 4 sp def
Nature: Bold
- Scald
- Ice Beam
- Toxic
- Perish Song
[Politoed is on the team for one reason and one reason only: To Summon Rain! Anything else it does is a bonus. One of the things that I like about this Politoed set is that if I Perish Song an Opponent and then switch to Gothitelle, I can stall out the turns until Perish Song is 0. Its gimmiky but it works sometimes against more defensive threats. Toxic is for Gastrodon, Jellicent, and Keldeo switch ins. Ice Beam hits grass switch ins hard but also gives me a way to deal nice damage to Dragonite and Salamence from which Politoed can take a +1 Outrage from.]
Pokémon: Genesect @ Choice Scarf
Ability:Download
EVs: 8 atk/252 Sp atk/ 248 speed
Nature: Naive
- U-Turn
- Flamethrower
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Beam
Genesect is true revenger. Being able to take on choice locked dragons and ice beam them or simply U-Turn out into Gothitelle or Dugtrio for me to trap, Genesect continously performs its role of special scout and lead time and time again. Next to Rotom-W, I lead with this guy the most. He comes in after doing nothing and sets up giving me a helpful boost against the opponent. The moveset is tailored for as much coverage as possible and is the standard for Choice Scarf Genesct. It forms the infamous Dugtrio + Gene offensive core and a Volt-Turn core together with Rotom-W.
Pokémon: Rotom-W @Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP/ 252 Special Defense/ 6 Def
Nature: Calm
- Hydro Pump
- Volt Switch
- Will-o-Wisp
- Pain Split
[Specially Defensive Rotom-W is probably one of the best Tornadus-T counters out there right now. Thats the main job Rotom-w does on this team for me. But I'd be lying if I told ya it stopped there. This thing is capable of sponging hits from many foes. An awesome rain counter, Rotom-w is a specially defensive pivot which can also switch into one of my trappers for a good match up. It forms the infamous "Volt-turn" core of scizor + rotom-w. It also handles Specially offensive Genesect quite nicely while maintaining its health high with pain split. An awesome utility counter to one of the most deadly threats in BW 2 OU, Rotom-W also sometimes serves as the MVP of the team.]
Pokémon Dugtrio @Focus Sash
Ability: Arena Trap
EVs: 252 Atk/ 252 Speed/ 4 Hp
Nature: Jolly
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge
- Reversal
[My final trapper and weather war winner. Dugtrio has sometimes won me games right at the start either by setting up stealth rocks or removing an opposing weather inducer. This guy is pretty versatile with its moveset either being supportive or offensively checking non scarfed terrakion, weakened jirachi, jolteon, Tyranitar, Ninetales and a few others. Its main job on the team is protecting my weather so if it does that, then that's all I could ask for from the three moles.]
Conclusion:
Part of why I wrote this RMT is to introduce the concept of "Trapping" in BW 2 OU where strategies like hyper offense and rain dominate. Its a really underrated strategy that can effectively be put into use and if used correctly can devastate the meta. Here is the exportable code so that you too may try the team out^^:
Gothitelle (M) @ Choice Specs
Trait: Shadow Tag
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SAtk
Modest Nature (+SAtk, -Atk)
- Trick
- Thunderbolt
- Psychic
- Hidden Power [Fire]
Politoed (M) @ Leftovers
Trait: Drizzle
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SAtk
Bold Nature (+Def, -Atk)
- Scald
- Ice Beam
- Toxic
- Perish Song
Genesect @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Download
EVs: 8 Atk / 252 SAtk / 248 Spd
Naive Nature (+Spd, -SDef)
- U-turn
- Flamethrower
- Ice Beam
- Thunderbolt
Rotom-W @ Leftovers
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SAtk / 252 SDef
Calm Nature (+SDef, -Atk)
- Volt Switch
- Hydro Pump
- Will-O-Wisp
- Pain Split
Tentacruel (F) @ Black Sludge
Trait: Rain Dish
EVs: 252 HP / 148 Def / 108 Spd
Bold Nature (+Def, -Atk)
- Scald
- Sludge Bomb
- Protect
- Rapid Spin
Dugtrio (F) @ Focus Sash
Trait: Arena Trap
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature (+Spd, -SAtk)
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Reversal
- Stone Edge
Trait: Shadow Tag
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SAtk
Modest Nature (+SAtk, -Atk)
- Trick
- Thunderbolt
- Psychic
- Hidden Power [Fire]
Politoed (M) @ Leftovers
Trait: Drizzle
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SAtk
Bold Nature (+Def, -Atk)
- Scald
- Ice Beam
- Toxic
- Perish Song
Genesect @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Download
EVs: 8 Atk / 252 SAtk / 248 Spd
Naive Nature (+Spd, -SDef)
- U-turn
- Flamethrower
- Ice Beam
- Thunderbolt
Rotom-W @ Leftovers
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SAtk / 252 SDef
Calm Nature (+SDef, -Atk)
- Volt Switch
- Hydro Pump
- Will-O-Wisp
- Pain Split
Tentacruel (F) @ Black Sludge
Trait: Rain Dish
EVs: 252 HP / 148 Def / 108 Spd
Bold Nature (+Def, -Atk)
- Scald
- Sludge Bomb
- Protect
- Rapid Spin
Dugtrio (F) @ Focus Sash
Trait: Arena Trap
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature (+Spd, -SAtk)
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Reversal
- Stone Edge