Suicide Trick Room Lead Chandelure (New Set)

Suicide Trick Room Lead Chandelure
Written: May 8, 2013
QC: 0/2
GP: 0/2

[OVERVIEW]

Chandelure is often used as an all-out attacker because of its top-notch special attack, but if you delve into its movepool a little more, you will see very potent and interesting options such as Confuse Ray and Memento. This set is intended to put some of Chandelure’s lesser-known powers to use. </p>

Name: Suicide Trick Room Lead Chandelure
Move 1: Trick Room
Move 2: Overheat/Fire Blast
Move 3: Memento
Move 4: Hidden Power Ground/Hidden Power Fighting/Confuse Ray
Item: Focus Sash
Ability: Flame Body
Nature: Quiet
EVs: 252 HP/252 SpA/4 SpD
IVs: 0 Spe

[SET COMMENTS]

<p> Chandelure’s first and foremost goal will to be to set up Trick Room. Most often it will get two turns to attack because most common leads (besides Forretress, Ferrothorn, and Blissey) will outspeed it. The second turn can be used to attack or to die, depending on the opponent’s lead. </p>

<p> There is no reason not to use Overheat or Fire Blast; Chandelure should die in a few turns, so PP is not an issue. More often than not Chandelure will only do damage once before fainting. Therefore the stat drops provided by Overheat barely matter, so for once it is the preferred STAB. </p>

<p> Memento is the “escape button” for this set, as Chandelure should not switch out, since it wastes a turn of Trick Room. This is why the set is designed for offensive Trick Room teams; it lets a sweeper get a free turn of set up, such as Calm Mind Reuniclus or Bulk Up Conkeldurr. </p>

<p> Hidden Power Ground is the best move in the last slot because Heatran loves switching into Fire Blast, but Hidden Power Fighting is more powerful for hitting Tyranitar; plus a lot of Pokemon are immune to Hidden Power Ground because of typing or Levitate. Confuse Ray could also be used here to make it even easier to set up, but is a luck-based move and thus should not be relied upon to get a successful suicide every time. </p>

[ADDITIONAL COMMENTS]

[OTHER OPTIONS]

<p> There are numerous options for the last slot. Will-o-Wisp or Toxic can be used to hurt the occasional set-up sweeper that will lead, such as Haxorus. Shadow Ball is present as a secondary STAB, but many of Chandelure’s counters resist Shadow Ball, so this is actually not the best option. Chandelure has Taunt to stop the opponent from setting entry hazards, but this is not the best move because Chandelure is supposed to be as slow as possible. Finally, Sunny Day is an option for Sun teams to combat Politoed and Tyranitar leads, but Chandelure won’t have long to take advantage of it, and the weather inducer can still switch out, then come in and reinitiate their own weather, so still use Ninetales. Unfortunately the other moves are pretty much set in stone because they are the moves that define this moveset.</p>

<p> The obvious partners are Trick Room sweepers. Conkeldurr has great synergy with Chandelure and can destroy Tyranitar easily, while Reuniclus has great coverage options and can re-set Trick Room after it expires. Since this set is intended to go out with Memento, set-up sweepers are good partners, as long as they do not boost speed. Reuniclus and Conkeldurr are still options, but Cofagrigus and Slowbro/Slowking all love Trick Room and can set up with Calm Mind or Nasty Plot. Finally, Gastrodon is a good partner as it absorbs Water-type moves, and it has access to Curse, a perfect setup move for Trick Room. </p>

[CHECKS AND COUNTERS]

<p> Luckily for Chandelure, basically nothing besides Rhyperior and Golem can stop it from setting up Trick Room (other than Taunt, but Taunting a Chandelure is generally risky since it often runs 4 attacking moves). Many Tyranitar will outspeed it and use it as setup fodder, and the Sand will break its Focus Sash, but if Chandelure has Hidden Power Fighting, that will still do a lot of damage. </p>
 
I am not keen on this set initially, mostly because some of the more common 'leads' beat it. Skarmory and Forretress can get the opportunity to Spike up while killing your Trick Room turns, Tyranitar is going to OHKO with Crunch and Terrakion can Taunt (tho it would prolly SR). The set is also heavily focused towards a small amount of TR teams, which limits its potential.

Do you have logs of this set working (PS! battles would work ok provided you are playing decent people on the ladder) as this would aid us in our decision.
 
For the record, this was originally used on a Trick Room-Sandstorm team, and it worked fairly well.

Here are some replays:

http://www.pokemonshowdown.com/replay/ou-18122164

This shows Chandelure's effectiveness as a suicide lead, and it shows how I managed to use the lead effectively, getting a lot done during Trick Room. The opponent left after his Aron was unusable, so I won. Note that Chandelure was not the one to set up Trick Room, but its Memento sacrifice allowed me to get a key advantage, especially since Chandelure could not likely beat Hippowodon itself.

http://www.pokemonshowdown.com/replay/ou-18169195

Ferrothorn serves as Heatran bait, bringing it into KO range for Magnezone. Chandelure actually gets Trick Room up this time, letting Reuniclus and Scizor wreck havoc, followed by a Landorus clean-up.
 
Innovator's rating: 1505 → 1509
(+4 for winning)

Game 2 your opponent used a mono steel team and Game 1 wasn't a shining example of play shown by your opponent either. Can you try and get battles from higher on the ladder / against higher ranked players. For instance, 1700-1800 isn't THAT tricky to get on short notice (I usually idle around 1850 with my 40~ test teams) and the quality is usually much higher. Even if you lose that battle, its ok so long as Chandelure did its job really well (tho ideally wins showcase this best). Battles currently submitted only shows that it works against low ranked players, and ideally smogon wants to include sets that are 'good', even against strong players. I would test this myself but I am utterly terrible at TR (and have other things to test) as its one of the few playstyles I cannot play well with.

Your help would be appreciated.
 
QC Rejected (1/3)

It loses to common leads, and doesn't really achieve anything worth noting. (You get like 3 turns max to abuse TR)
 
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