I have been working on this team since January 1st, and after constantly changing pokemon and movesets as new threats arise and overhyped threats prove tame, the team has finally stabilized from what was 1 permanant member to what is now 5 permanant members, with Mismagius still proving itself. This team is based around either CM Entei bulldozing through the enemy team if I'm playing against stall, or Houndoom destroying my enemies pokemon with extreme prejudice before they can become a threat. In order to do this, there are key aspects that must be incorporated into the team to prevent Entei from getting walled and/or Houndoom from getting killed prematurely.
Toxic: Most of the pokemon that wall Entei are Flash Fire pokemon or bulky waters, and neither of these pokemon archetypes can hurt Entei once he's got a few CMs under his belt. But because Entei has no reliable way of hurting them either, they will generally beat Entei in a stall war with a critical hit if Entei just tries to PP stall. This makes toxic damage extremely important for destroying Entei's walls while Entei stays fresh with Rest
Hazard Damage: Because my team plays very defensively, it forces a lot of switching. Hazard damage is neccessary to punish my opponents switching and also soften up his pokemon to be cleaned up by Houndoom. Spikes and Stealth Rock are a neccessity.
A Spin Blocker: Since Hazard damage is a neccessary part of my strategy, keeping my opponent from getting rid of my entry hazards is just as important.
Phazing: Even though I try to rely on Houndoom for stopping sweeps and not phazing, there are some strategies that cannot be beaten with a choice scarf, like substitute and priority attacks. For these strategies it is important that I be able to shuffle up my opponents pokemon and keep them from establishing a firm position.
So here is the team that has put me at #25 on the UU ladder. This team is still far from perfect (but getting closer), so feel free to post your rates and suggestions.
Roserade (M) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 160 HP/252 Def/96 Spd
Timid nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Sludge Bomb
- Energy Ball
- Spikes
- Rest / Extrasensory / HP Ice
Synergy: Lays down spikes, making it easier to score revenge kills with Houndoom. Also significantly shortens the life span of anything being toxic-stalled, reducing the chances of getting haxed by criticals.
A very controversial set and ev spread, the main purpose of this guy is to throw spikes down before it can be taunted, which is an extremely common move in UU and very annoying for this team. The evs give him enough speed to outspeed crobat, although leaving him in to be Brave Birded is usually not a good idea so I'm considering lowering it to improve defenses, or raising it to revenge kill speed boosting sweepers, I'm not sure which. If it manages to still be alive after throwing down 3 layers of spikes, Rosearade can function as a revenge killer. When Roserade does survive, it usually does so with barely any health, and so I find Rest+Natural Cure is useful for giving it more switch ins. I forgo special attack evs because being able to survive multiple unSTABed Ice Beams and weak Earthquakes is very useful when trying to get spikes down. This thing has almost never failed to lay down 3 layers of spikes for me, something that not even Frosslass has been able to accomplish.
Started as: Originally I didn't bother with a spiker but then I gave Frosslass a try after Lonely Ness advised me to use more entry hazards. Spikes proved to be extremely useful, but Frosslass ended up being too slow to get through the common taunting leads to be useful so finally I solved the problem by inventing this Roserade set.
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Entei @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 HP/252 Def
Bold nature (+Def, -Atk)
- Flamethrower
- Calm Mind
- Sleep Talk
- Rest
Synergy: As the teams tank, Entei kills whatever Houndoom doesn't have enough power to kill. He does cause a lot of switches as people figure out and try to adapt to his moveset.
The teams captain, I've basically built the entire team around allowing this guy to sweep. I posted an in depth analysis about how the set works here. Entei uses its surprising physical bulk to get enough Calm Minds to become unstoppable. There's not much to be said that's not in the analysis. So far the only thing that's beaten this set with the full support engine going is SubGatr and Azumarill, who generally give me problems without a water resist and require revenge killing. A lot of stall teams give me lots of turns to set up by paralyzing or toxicing Entei, thinking it's trying to be a wannabe Raikou. Entei is generally useless against all out offensive teams that have a lot of attack boosting Due to its inability to use Calm Mind and Roar on the same set.
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Drapion (M) @ Black Sludge
Ability: Battle Armor
EVs: 252 HP/252 Def
Bold nature (+Def, -Atk)
- Taunt
- Toxic Spikes
- Whirlwind
- Crunch
Synergy: Reduces the amount of turns I have to use up to toxic the enemy team down to two and allows me to toxic stuff that abuses Substitute. Weakens enemy pokemon with Whirlwind and prevents opponents from setting up their strategy. Allows me to do something to Mismagius and ghosts in general.
At one point I had spike and Tspikes on Rosearade, but I found that it could only manage 1 or the other. So I replaced my hazer+phazer (crobat) with something that could shoulder the burden of Tspikes and has a slightly less compromising offense than Brave Bird in the form of STAB Crunch. Crunch is used over Earthquake here because CM Mismagius is a major problem for this team, which is entirely special based and relies on hazard and toxic damage, which Mismagius blocks with levitate and substitute. The redudancy of toxic on my team also makes enemy poison types less of an issue. Whirlwind is useful for scouting switches, racking up hazard damage, and sometimes phazing a sweeper if I can identify it before it gets too many boosts. Taunt is an incredibly useful move against support pokemon, which Drapion tends to outspeed with 95 base speed.
Started as: In the attempt to find a good Tspiker and hazer, I went from Nidoqueen to Blastoise to Crobat to Hariyama to Milotic to Walrein back to Crobat and finally I've settled on Drapion. UU is seriously lacking in good phazers considering how it's full of boosting sweepers.
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Adolf (Registeel) @ Leftovers
Ability: Clear Body
EVs: 252 HP/252 Def
Sassy nature (+SDef, -Spd)
- Stealth Rock
- Toxic
- Seismic Toss
- Explosion
A little poke trivia for you, Registeels sprite was censored in Europe because it was too reminicient of the Nazi greeting.
Synergy: Rounds out entry damage with SR, toxic acts as a fail safe in case Toxic Spikes gets absorbed or there are pokemon that Tspikes can't poison. Explosion can sometimes get rid of an annoying pokemon on the enemies team. Also stops things like Altaria and Gabite from ripping through me with Outrage.
Registeel rounds out the entry hazards nicely with Stealth Rock, hitting the flyers that don't take any damage from spikes. This guy is also my obligatory switch in against Staraptor and Crobat's Brave Bird. Evs are for taking hits from both sides of the spectrum. Toxic is to poison flyers for more Entei support and as a fail safe in case Toxic spikes can't be put out, and I've tried every attack combination there is from Iron Head to Earthquake + Thunderbolt, and so far Seismic Toss has done the most damage to widest array of pokemon, generally doing about 4/5 of the damage registeel can muster from super effective attacks. And of course, Explosion puts a nice Registeel shaped dent in the enemy team. Explosion is just generally a good idea on walls that can't heal themselves.
Started as: Originally Uxie was my SRer, then went to Miltank and finally settled on Registeel after it proved to be great at stopping Staraptor from picking my team apart.
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(StrawMan) Mismagius (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP/252 Spd
Timid nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Will-o-wisp
- Shadow Ball
- Taunt
- Perish Song
Named after my favorite argumentative tool. This is the most recent addition to my team.
Synergy: Keeps all important entry hazards in from being removed, statuses toxic immune pokemon as well as making them hit Entei for less damage. Keeps the opponent from setting up with taunt and adds to the team shuffling with Perish Song. Levitate is also good for patching up the Ground weakness that four of my pokemon have, and is the key reason I'm using Mismagius instead of Spiritomb.
Since my team kind of relies on entry hazards for softening things up to swept, taking all the time to set them up only to have them spun away kind of sucks, especially since its nearly impossible to set everything up twice. Mismagius can also burn anything that isn't suceptible to toxic, giving even more status support to Entei. It's useful that Mismagius tends to lure out steel pokemon to get burned because of its ghost typing. Mismagius is the obligatory attack so that I can still make a come back even if Entei and Houndoom both die. Taunt is just generally useful on something with that much speed, as previously stated, especially for stopping sweepers from putting up a substitute (or at least boosting from behind a sub) while I switch. Perish Song is fun for forcing even more switches and ensuring victory if my opponent is down to one pokemon that I can't kill. Like Heal Bell Blissey if Entei and Drapion are dead. Right now it's ev'd to take special attacks to compliment WOW, but it's been failing pretty hard with only 60 as its hp stat.
Started as: Originally Frosslass was supposed to be it's own spin blocker, but that didn't really work for obvious reasons. For a while I didn't bother with ghost types, but then claydol and hitmontop started to become a lot more popular. I tried the Perish trapping set to see if it was broken, but I could barely survive an assault by a registeel to get the perish ko. So I tried spiritomb with limited sucess, but its inability to recover outside of rest and its lack of ground resistance to switch in with made it less than sturdy so I switched to Mismagius again for Levitate and went with my own custom set. ---
She Beast (Houndoom) (F) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 252 Spd/252 SAtk/4 SDef
Modest nature (+SAtk, -Atk)
- Dark Pulse
- Hidden Power [Ground]
- Fire Blast
- Toxic / Roar
Synergy: Houndoom stops the overpowered sweepers that would otherwise rip through my team. Unmatched as a revenge killer. Toxic supports Entei some more. Also absorbs trick scarfing. Also gives me a switch to the fire attacks that hit two of my pokemon for super effective damage.
This bitch is brutal. If Entei is my tank then Houndoom is my sniper. Offensive threats in UU hit ridiculously hard, and trying to wall and phaze things like Swords Dance Gallade and Nasty Plot Slowking is just not possible. Outspeeding with a powerful attack is the best way to take out these glass cannons, and Houndoom is my personal guard dog against being swept. Houndoom stops sweeps by outspeeding the sweepers and drowning them in a sea of fire and darkness before they can wreck my team. 438 speed means its outspeeding anything and everything. Spikes and toxic damage are extremely important in helping Houndoom score 1hkos on things like Gallade and Raikou where it would otherwise be a 2hko. A lot of people don't expect Houndoom to be scarfed, thinking its going to be a Nasty Plotter instead, which has netted me a lot of surprise kos. Houndoom is also great for switching into pesky psychic types where you don't know whether they're going to psychic you or trick a scarf onto you. Houndoom is safe either way. Toxic is for even more redundant Entei support, especially since bulky waters are usually the safe and expected switch in to Entei. This sets only problems are Fire Blasts meh accuracy, which has let me down on a few occasions, but not enough to even think about dropping Houndoom. Another problem is when Houndoom switches into what I expect to be a fire/psychic attack or a boosting move, only to have a substitute thrown up in my face. Houndoom is OHKOd by most neutrally effective attacks, so anything that can hide itself behind a sub can screw Houndoom over. I am considering running roar over toxic to scout switches, as Drapion has been doing an awesome job as a toxic spiker so getting toxic onto those waters isn't as hard as it was when Roserade was my Tspiker.
For those out there that are running stall and are getting ripped to shreds by stuff like Feraligatr and Blaziken, this is your answer, not phazing as I once thought was the answer.
Started as: Orginally I used Staraptor as My Choice Bander, but I soon found that powerful fire attacks were a lot more common than ground attacks, so I switched over to Houndoom and instantly loved her.
Toxic: Most of the pokemon that wall Entei are Flash Fire pokemon or bulky waters, and neither of these pokemon archetypes can hurt Entei once he's got a few CMs under his belt. But because Entei has no reliable way of hurting them either, they will generally beat Entei in a stall war with a critical hit if Entei just tries to PP stall. This makes toxic damage extremely important for destroying Entei's walls while Entei stays fresh with Rest
Hazard Damage: Because my team plays very defensively, it forces a lot of switching. Hazard damage is neccessary to punish my opponents switching and also soften up his pokemon to be cleaned up by Houndoom. Spikes and Stealth Rock are a neccessity.
A Spin Blocker: Since Hazard damage is a neccessary part of my strategy, keeping my opponent from getting rid of my entry hazards is just as important.
Phazing: Even though I try to rely on Houndoom for stopping sweeps and not phazing, there are some strategies that cannot be beaten with a choice scarf, like substitute and priority attacks. For these strategies it is important that I be able to shuffle up my opponents pokemon and keep them from establishing a firm position.
So here is the team that has put me at #25 on the UU ladder. This team is still far from perfect (but getting closer), so feel free to post your rates and suggestions.
Roserade (M) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 160 HP/252 Def/96 Spd
Timid nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Sludge Bomb
- Energy Ball
- Spikes
- Rest / Extrasensory / HP Ice
Synergy: Lays down spikes, making it easier to score revenge kills with Houndoom. Also significantly shortens the life span of anything being toxic-stalled, reducing the chances of getting haxed by criticals.
A very controversial set and ev spread, the main purpose of this guy is to throw spikes down before it can be taunted, which is an extremely common move in UU and very annoying for this team. The evs give him enough speed to outspeed crobat, although leaving him in to be Brave Birded is usually not a good idea so I'm considering lowering it to improve defenses, or raising it to revenge kill speed boosting sweepers, I'm not sure which. If it manages to still be alive after throwing down 3 layers of spikes, Rosearade can function as a revenge killer. When Roserade does survive, it usually does so with barely any health, and so I find Rest+Natural Cure is useful for giving it more switch ins. I forgo special attack evs because being able to survive multiple unSTABed Ice Beams and weak Earthquakes is very useful when trying to get spikes down. This thing has almost never failed to lay down 3 layers of spikes for me, something that not even Frosslass has been able to accomplish.
Started as: Originally I didn't bother with a spiker but then I gave Frosslass a try after Lonely Ness advised me to use more entry hazards. Spikes proved to be extremely useful, but Frosslass ended up being too slow to get through the common taunting leads to be useful so finally I solved the problem by inventing this Roserade set.
---
Entei @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 HP/252 Def
Bold nature (+Def, -Atk)
- Flamethrower
- Calm Mind
- Sleep Talk
- Rest
Synergy: As the teams tank, Entei kills whatever Houndoom doesn't have enough power to kill. He does cause a lot of switches as people figure out and try to adapt to his moveset.
The teams captain, I've basically built the entire team around allowing this guy to sweep. I posted an in depth analysis about how the set works here. Entei uses its surprising physical bulk to get enough Calm Minds to become unstoppable. There's not much to be said that's not in the analysis. So far the only thing that's beaten this set with the full support engine going is SubGatr and Azumarill, who generally give me problems without a water resist and require revenge killing. A lot of stall teams give me lots of turns to set up by paralyzing or toxicing Entei, thinking it's trying to be a wannabe Raikou. Entei is generally useless against all out offensive teams that have a lot of attack boosting Due to its inability to use Calm Mind and Roar on the same set.
---
Drapion (M) @ Black Sludge
Ability: Battle Armor
EVs: 252 HP/252 Def
Bold nature (+Def, -Atk)
- Taunt
- Toxic Spikes
- Whirlwind
- Crunch
Synergy: Reduces the amount of turns I have to use up to toxic the enemy team down to two and allows me to toxic stuff that abuses Substitute. Weakens enemy pokemon with Whirlwind and prevents opponents from setting up their strategy. Allows me to do something to Mismagius and ghosts in general.
At one point I had spike and Tspikes on Rosearade, but I found that it could only manage 1 or the other. So I replaced my hazer+phazer (crobat) with something that could shoulder the burden of Tspikes and has a slightly less compromising offense than Brave Bird in the form of STAB Crunch. Crunch is used over Earthquake here because CM Mismagius is a major problem for this team, which is entirely special based and relies on hazard and toxic damage, which Mismagius blocks with levitate and substitute. The redudancy of toxic on my team also makes enemy poison types less of an issue. Whirlwind is useful for scouting switches, racking up hazard damage, and sometimes phazing a sweeper if I can identify it before it gets too many boosts. Taunt is an incredibly useful move against support pokemon, which Drapion tends to outspeed with 95 base speed.
Started as: In the attempt to find a good Tspiker and hazer, I went from Nidoqueen to Blastoise to Crobat to Hariyama to Milotic to Walrein back to Crobat and finally I've settled on Drapion. UU is seriously lacking in good phazers considering how it's full of boosting sweepers.
---
Adolf (Registeel) @ Leftovers
Ability: Clear Body
EVs: 252 HP/252 Def
Sassy nature (+SDef, -Spd)
- Stealth Rock
- Toxic
- Seismic Toss
- Explosion
A little poke trivia for you, Registeels sprite was censored in Europe because it was too reminicient of the Nazi greeting.
Synergy: Rounds out entry damage with SR, toxic acts as a fail safe in case Toxic Spikes gets absorbed or there are pokemon that Tspikes can't poison. Explosion can sometimes get rid of an annoying pokemon on the enemies team. Also stops things like Altaria and Gabite from ripping through me with Outrage.
Registeel rounds out the entry hazards nicely with Stealth Rock, hitting the flyers that don't take any damage from spikes. This guy is also my obligatory switch in against Staraptor and Crobat's Brave Bird. Evs are for taking hits from both sides of the spectrum. Toxic is to poison flyers for more Entei support and as a fail safe in case Toxic spikes can't be put out, and I've tried every attack combination there is from Iron Head to Earthquake + Thunderbolt, and so far Seismic Toss has done the most damage to widest array of pokemon, generally doing about 4/5 of the damage registeel can muster from super effective attacks. And of course, Explosion puts a nice Registeel shaped dent in the enemy team. Explosion is just generally a good idea on walls that can't heal themselves.
Started as: Originally Uxie was my SRer, then went to Miltank and finally settled on Registeel after it proved to be great at stopping Staraptor from picking my team apart.
---
(StrawMan) Mismagius (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP/252 Spd
Timid nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Will-o-wisp
- Shadow Ball
- Taunt
- Perish Song
Named after my favorite argumentative tool. This is the most recent addition to my team.
Synergy: Keeps all important entry hazards in from being removed, statuses toxic immune pokemon as well as making them hit Entei for less damage. Keeps the opponent from setting up with taunt and adds to the team shuffling with Perish Song. Levitate is also good for patching up the Ground weakness that four of my pokemon have, and is the key reason I'm using Mismagius instead of Spiritomb.
Since my team kind of relies on entry hazards for softening things up to swept, taking all the time to set them up only to have them spun away kind of sucks, especially since its nearly impossible to set everything up twice. Mismagius can also burn anything that isn't suceptible to toxic, giving even more status support to Entei. It's useful that Mismagius tends to lure out steel pokemon to get burned because of its ghost typing. Mismagius is the obligatory attack so that I can still make a come back even if Entei and Houndoom both die. Taunt is just generally useful on something with that much speed, as previously stated, especially for stopping sweepers from putting up a substitute (or at least boosting from behind a sub) while I switch. Perish Song is fun for forcing even more switches and ensuring victory if my opponent is down to one pokemon that I can't kill. Like Heal Bell Blissey if Entei and Drapion are dead. Right now it's ev'd to take special attacks to compliment WOW, but it's been failing pretty hard with only 60 as its hp stat.
Started as: Originally Frosslass was supposed to be it's own spin blocker, but that didn't really work for obvious reasons. For a while I didn't bother with ghost types, but then claydol and hitmontop started to become a lot more popular. I tried the Perish trapping set to see if it was broken, but I could barely survive an assault by a registeel to get the perish ko. So I tried spiritomb with limited sucess, but its inability to recover outside of rest and its lack of ground resistance to switch in with made it less than sturdy so I switched to Mismagius again for Levitate and went with my own custom set. ---
She Beast (Houndoom) (F) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 252 Spd/252 SAtk/4 SDef
Modest nature (+SAtk, -Atk)
- Dark Pulse
- Hidden Power [Ground]
- Fire Blast
- Toxic / Roar
Synergy: Houndoom stops the overpowered sweepers that would otherwise rip through my team. Unmatched as a revenge killer. Toxic supports Entei some more. Also absorbs trick scarfing. Also gives me a switch to the fire attacks that hit two of my pokemon for super effective damage.
This bitch is brutal. If Entei is my tank then Houndoom is my sniper. Offensive threats in UU hit ridiculously hard, and trying to wall and phaze things like Swords Dance Gallade and Nasty Plot Slowking is just not possible. Outspeeding with a powerful attack is the best way to take out these glass cannons, and Houndoom is my personal guard dog against being swept. Houndoom stops sweeps by outspeeding the sweepers and drowning them in a sea of fire and darkness before they can wreck my team. 438 speed means its outspeeding anything and everything. Spikes and toxic damage are extremely important in helping Houndoom score 1hkos on things like Gallade and Raikou where it would otherwise be a 2hko. A lot of people don't expect Houndoom to be scarfed, thinking its going to be a Nasty Plotter instead, which has netted me a lot of surprise kos. Houndoom is also great for switching into pesky psychic types where you don't know whether they're going to psychic you or trick a scarf onto you. Houndoom is safe either way. Toxic is for even more redundant Entei support, especially since bulky waters are usually the safe and expected switch in to Entei. This sets only problems are Fire Blasts meh accuracy, which has let me down on a few occasions, but not enough to even think about dropping Houndoom. Another problem is when Houndoom switches into what I expect to be a fire/psychic attack or a boosting move, only to have a substitute thrown up in my face. Houndoom is OHKOd by most neutrally effective attacks, so anything that can hide itself behind a sub can screw Houndoom over. I am considering running roar over toxic to scout switches, as Drapion has been doing an awesome job as a toxic spiker so getting toxic onto those waters isn't as hard as it was when Roserade was my Tspiker.
For those out there that are running stall and are getting ripped to shreds by stuff like Feraligatr and Blaziken, this is your answer, not phazing as I once thought was the answer.
Started as: Orginally I used Staraptor as My Choice Bander, but I soon found that powerful fire attacks were a lot more common than ground attacks, so I switched over to Houndoom and instantly loved her.
