I decided to make an RMT because I haven't made one in 6th gen and I had a somewhat decent team I wanted feedback on. Essentially the goal of this team is to constantly sweep early game, you set up for a sweep or at the least a lot of damage and pressure to try to make the other team fall apart. And when a mon dies it's an opportunity for another to set up next turn. So this team is made up completely of set-up sweepers with a suicide lead, with an attempt to make them able to set-up against another's counter.
To start I have a suicide lead, initially I had Deoxys-D with red card which is really great when it works, unfortunately it's way too expected/predictable so people could easily counter it and stop me from getting rocks up. This led me to go down a different route because with the defog buff/more and better spinners it was really useless to waste time setting up spikes and that all I really needed was rocks. So I decided to bring back lead Terrakion, which is nice because it counters its replacement, the increasingly common Deoxys-D. (Also not that Terrakion is note my preview lead).
Terrakion @ Focus Sash
Ability: Justified
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 Atk / 4 SDef
Jolly Nature
- Taunt
- Stealth Rock
- Close Combat
- Stone Edge
Aside from being a completely and utterly badass mon Terrakion is one of the best ways to get your rocks up and prevent your opponent from getting theirs up. One of the most useful things about Terrakion is that people aren't expecting the Taunt, they lead with their Lando-T feel they're completely safe and just go for rocks, get taunted, I get my rocks up and if they decide to kill me it's a free set-up opportunity for something; especially if their taunt wears off and they just decide to go for rocks. Because this team is all about setting up early, which people aren't expecting to lose the game by just giving one free turn. And when people are running magic bouncers they don't switch it in because they don't expect the rocks, and also since Terrakion has a great dual STAB and offensive presence it can tear a hole in a team early game while they struggle to deal with it and are surprised when their OHKO is stopped by a focus sash and they die.
Now this next mon has been on the team since the beginning since it was a new threat I wanted to try out and can be very successful against unprepared teams. Belly Drum Azumarill.
Azumarill @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Huge Power
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature
- Aqua Jet
- Waterfall
- Play Rough
- Belly Drum
This thing is a beast, even though it has uninvested bulk it has decent enough natural bulk to tank a weak hit and get off a belly drum and sweep early or late game. Basically all you need is rocks and no fast water resists and you're good. Now as for why I'm running speed and not bulk, because despite having Huge Power and a +6 attack stat it is still unable to OHKO quite a few walls without aqua jet, so you need to outspeed and kill them with waterfall/play rough while aqua jet kills the fast mons, even some who resist it after rocks. And even if you don't manage to completely sweep you can do enough damage to where you've weakened the team enough for another mon to come in and sweep or set-up in the revenge killers face. Unfortunately this metagame is so priority based that it's not enough to have priority, you need fast priority which azumarill lacks and can cause a lot of failed sweeps.
Speaking of priority I needed a mega for this team and originally I had mega Luc, but my team had a glaring weakness, because it relies completely on set-up sweepers strong, fast priority aka talonflame was a huge problem. So I chose the only mega that counters talonflame and can set-up in its face; this is where Tyranitar comes into the picture.
Tyranitar @ Tyranitarite
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature
- Crunch
- Stone Edge
- Earthquake
- Dragon Dance
The only reason I put this on my team initially was to counter Talonflame, but because of its huge bulk it has many set-up opportunities and can be a very effective sweeper especially because people aren't expecting mega Ttar or it to be a sweeper. And because of Talonflame's ubiquitous use it is often used to revenge kill my other mons which gives me a perfect opportunity to set-up. The only thing this really fears is mons who are bulky enough to take a +1 hit or fast scarfers. The moves are all standard, and EQ is especially nice for Aegislash who is annoying as hell when you have as many physical attackers as this team.
Now at this point I had a huge abundance of physical attackers and a glaring weakness to burns/Rotom-W and initially my special attacker was sub-cm Keldeo and it could work quite well but it only made the Rotom-W problem worse. So in order to deal with this I decided to use Latias because it was a special attacker and had some very key resistances my team needed as well as good set-up synergy which is what this team relies on.
Latias (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 SAtk / 4 SDef / 252 Spd
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Substitute
- Calm Mind
- Dragon Pulse
- Psyshock
Sub-CM Latias can perform quite well and most importantly can set-up in the faces of things that would send the other members of the team running away such as (and most significantly) Rotom-W. After a substitute and a couple calm minds it can cause teams to forfeit out of sheer not wanting to deal with it. I initially ran max hp/max speed but because of the offensive nature of the team and lack of special attackers I decided I needed some immediate special firepower. Now the only issue with this is the secondary attack, Psyshock is good because it decimates special walls that switch in thinking they're safe and is a good secondary STAB, but it gives horrible coverage in that any steel type will resist both. And with the nerf to hidden powers it gives me less of a reason to run one. I also needed something that could set-up well on stall teams and this definitely is given that it can set up all over things like Mega Venusaur and Heatran (granted this set needs a lot of set-up to get past Heatran but if it's lacking roar or dragon pulse it can't touch Latias).
Now because this meta is so overrun with priority I needed some of it to revenge kill and power to back it up, so of course I chose the only Pokemon with a 120 BP priority move + STAB, Talonflame.
Talonflame @ Leftovers
Ability: Gale Wings
EVs: 250 HP / 252 Atk / 6 Spd
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Flare Blitz
- Roost
- Brave Bird
Now say what you will but even though it has pretty weak stats outside of speed, this thing is a little broken. You don't need a good attack when you're going to be spamming a 180 BP move after STAB with priority and a good typing that nothing is immune to. Sure there are lots of Pokemon that counter it, but the problem is that you have to run them to have a successful team, Ttar was put on this team solely because of Talonflame. The EVs give an odd HP number for two switch ins to rocks, and 6 speed EVs to speed creep other 0 speed Talonflames, (basically) max HP is for taking recoil and some weak neutral hits in order to set-up. I really enjoyed the banded version of Talonflame but this team is entirely compromised of set-up sweepers and it requires too much switching/predicting which you want to avoid doing with this team. If your opponent is anyway decent then they will have a Talonflame counter on their team so you can never really sweep early game but it's great at cleaning up late game, especially if they switch in their resist to a +2 hit because that thing's getting 2HKO'd. And while you aren't invested in speed you can still outspeed many Pokemon naturally which is useful.
Now the last mon was something I put on that I find is fun to use and can be really dangerous, and had the utility of getting free set-up from all the Lando-Ts and Defog users, and had more powerful priority which is very useful but still doesn't have fast priority which is what you need nowadays. Bisharp.
Bisharp (M) @ Life Orb
Ability: Defiant
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 Atk / 4 HP
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Sucker Punch
- Iron Head
- Knock Off
As I said before this is a really fun and powerful mon to use especially when used right but its common weaknesses can be its downfall given that it doesn't have a lot of set-up opportunities unless it gets a free one. But that being said it has many redeeming qualities, powerful STAB priority in the form of sucker punch, a resistance to flying, STAB knock off which makes it hard to switch into, free set-up on Chansey/Blissey lacking Thunder Wave, and a sucker punch as an attack against Aegislash to not have to worry about King's Shield shenanigans. It still is somewhat expendable even though it acts as a defog deterrent and I usually only use rocks once, because given that the entire team sets up all of them can capitalize on that free turn. And it gets completely decimated by anything carrying mach punch.
So there's the team, you do have to play with a good deal of prediction, for instance when you bring something in after Terrakion dies you can immediately double into the predicted switch into that one's counter and set up in its face, predicting around protects and rocks/defog turns and it can be a little risky at times but you have to remember that they're meant to die a lot of the time and not be preserved in order to give a set-up opportunity to another team member. That doesn't mean you should never preserve anything though it's all situational.
There are some threats that this team has off the top of my head, I might add others later if I think of them but Breloom can be very threatening given that nothing wants to go to sleep and Mach Punch destroys 3 of my mons, bullet seed kills another, and rock tomb kills another. Aegislash is just inherently annoying because I have so many physical attackers and you have to predict around it. Anything with unaware and specifically cosmic power unaware Clefable will destroy my team given I have no status inducers. The move scald.
To start I have a suicide lead, initially I had Deoxys-D with red card which is really great when it works, unfortunately it's way too expected/predictable so people could easily counter it and stop me from getting rocks up. This led me to go down a different route because with the defog buff/more and better spinners it was really useless to waste time setting up spikes and that all I really needed was rocks. So I decided to bring back lead Terrakion, which is nice because it counters its replacement, the increasingly common Deoxys-D. (Also not that Terrakion is note my preview lead).
Terrakion @ Focus Sash
Ability: Justified
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 Atk / 4 SDef
Jolly Nature
- Taunt
- Stealth Rock
- Close Combat
- Stone Edge
Aside from being a completely and utterly badass mon Terrakion is one of the best ways to get your rocks up and prevent your opponent from getting theirs up. One of the most useful things about Terrakion is that people aren't expecting the Taunt, they lead with their Lando-T feel they're completely safe and just go for rocks, get taunted, I get my rocks up and if they decide to kill me it's a free set-up opportunity for something; especially if their taunt wears off and they just decide to go for rocks. Because this team is all about setting up early, which people aren't expecting to lose the game by just giving one free turn. And when people are running magic bouncers they don't switch it in because they don't expect the rocks, and also since Terrakion has a great dual STAB and offensive presence it can tear a hole in a team early game while they struggle to deal with it and are surprised when their OHKO is stopped by a focus sash and they die.
Now this next mon has been on the team since the beginning since it was a new threat I wanted to try out and can be very successful against unprepared teams. Belly Drum Azumarill.
Azumarill @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Huge Power
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature
- Aqua Jet
- Waterfall
- Play Rough
- Belly Drum
This thing is a beast, even though it has uninvested bulk it has decent enough natural bulk to tank a weak hit and get off a belly drum and sweep early or late game. Basically all you need is rocks and no fast water resists and you're good. Now as for why I'm running speed and not bulk, because despite having Huge Power and a +6 attack stat it is still unable to OHKO quite a few walls without aqua jet, so you need to outspeed and kill them with waterfall/play rough while aqua jet kills the fast mons, even some who resist it after rocks. And even if you don't manage to completely sweep you can do enough damage to where you've weakened the team enough for another mon to come in and sweep or set-up in the revenge killers face. Unfortunately this metagame is so priority based that it's not enough to have priority, you need fast priority which azumarill lacks and can cause a lot of failed sweeps.
Speaking of priority I needed a mega for this team and originally I had mega Luc, but my team had a glaring weakness, because it relies completely on set-up sweepers strong, fast priority aka talonflame was a huge problem. So I chose the only mega that counters talonflame and can set-up in its face; this is where Tyranitar comes into the picture.
Tyranitar @ Tyranitarite
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature
- Crunch
- Stone Edge
- Earthquake
- Dragon Dance
The only reason I put this on my team initially was to counter Talonflame, but because of its huge bulk it has many set-up opportunities and can be a very effective sweeper especially because people aren't expecting mega Ttar or it to be a sweeper. And because of Talonflame's ubiquitous use it is often used to revenge kill my other mons which gives me a perfect opportunity to set-up. The only thing this really fears is mons who are bulky enough to take a +1 hit or fast scarfers. The moves are all standard, and EQ is especially nice for Aegislash who is annoying as hell when you have as many physical attackers as this team.
Now at this point I had a huge abundance of physical attackers and a glaring weakness to burns/Rotom-W and initially my special attacker was sub-cm Keldeo and it could work quite well but it only made the Rotom-W problem worse. So in order to deal with this I decided to use Latias because it was a special attacker and had some very key resistances my team needed as well as good set-up synergy which is what this team relies on.
Latias (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 SAtk / 4 SDef / 252 Spd
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Substitute
- Calm Mind
- Dragon Pulse
- Psyshock
Sub-CM Latias can perform quite well and most importantly can set-up in the faces of things that would send the other members of the team running away such as (and most significantly) Rotom-W. After a substitute and a couple calm minds it can cause teams to forfeit out of sheer not wanting to deal with it. I initially ran max hp/max speed but because of the offensive nature of the team and lack of special attackers I decided I needed some immediate special firepower. Now the only issue with this is the secondary attack, Psyshock is good because it decimates special walls that switch in thinking they're safe and is a good secondary STAB, but it gives horrible coverage in that any steel type will resist both. And with the nerf to hidden powers it gives me less of a reason to run one. I also needed something that could set-up well on stall teams and this definitely is given that it can set up all over things like Mega Venusaur and Heatran (granted this set needs a lot of set-up to get past Heatran but if it's lacking roar or dragon pulse it can't touch Latias).
Now because this meta is so overrun with priority I needed some of it to revenge kill and power to back it up, so of course I chose the only Pokemon with a 120 BP priority move + STAB, Talonflame.
Talonflame @ Leftovers
Ability: Gale Wings
EVs: 250 HP / 252 Atk / 6 Spd
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Flare Blitz
- Roost
- Brave Bird
Now say what you will but even though it has pretty weak stats outside of speed, this thing is a little broken. You don't need a good attack when you're going to be spamming a 180 BP move after STAB with priority and a good typing that nothing is immune to. Sure there are lots of Pokemon that counter it, but the problem is that you have to run them to have a successful team, Ttar was put on this team solely because of Talonflame. The EVs give an odd HP number for two switch ins to rocks, and 6 speed EVs to speed creep other 0 speed Talonflames, (basically) max HP is for taking recoil and some weak neutral hits in order to set-up. I really enjoyed the banded version of Talonflame but this team is entirely compromised of set-up sweepers and it requires too much switching/predicting which you want to avoid doing with this team. If your opponent is anyway decent then they will have a Talonflame counter on their team so you can never really sweep early game but it's great at cleaning up late game, especially if they switch in their resist to a +2 hit because that thing's getting 2HKO'd. And while you aren't invested in speed you can still outspeed many Pokemon naturally which is useful.
Now the last mon was something I put on that I find is fun to use and can be really dangerous, and had the utility of getting free set-up from all the Lando-Ts and Defog users, and had more powerful priority which is very useful but still doesn't have fast priority which is what you need nowadays. Bisharp.
Bisharp (M) @ Life Orb
Ability: Defiant
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 Atk / 4 HP
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Sucker Punch
- Iron Head
- Knock Off
As I said before this is a really fun and powerful mon to use especially when used right but its common weaknesses can be its downfall given that it doesn't have a lot of set-up opportunities unless it gets a free one. But that being said it has many redeeming qualities, powerful STAB priority in the form of sucker punch, a resistance to flying, STAB knock off which makes it hard to switch into, free set-up on Chansey/Blissey lacking Thunder Wave, and a sucker punch as an attack against Aegislash to not have to worry about King's Shield shenanigans. It still is somewhat expendable even though it acts as a defog deterrent and I usually only use rocks once, because given that the entire team sets up all of them can capitalize on that free turn. And it gets completely decimated by anything carrying mach punch.
So there's the team, you do have to play with a good deal of prediction, for instance when you bring something in after Terrakion dies you can immediately double into the predicted switch into that one's counter and set up in its face, predicting around protects and rocks/defog turns and it can be a little risky at times but you have to remember that they're meant to die a lot of the time and not be preserved in order to give a set-up opportunity to another team member. That doesn't mean you should never preserve anything though it's all situational.
There are some threats that this team has off the top of my head, I might add others later if I think of them but Breloom can be very threatening given that nothing wants to go to sleep and Mach Punch destroys 3 of my mons, bullet seed kills another, and rock tomb kills another. Aegislash is just inherently annoying because I have so many physical attackers and you have to predict around it. Anything with unaware and specifically cosmic power unaware Clefable will destroy my team given I have no status inducers. The move scald.