Team Phobia, one of my most succesfull teams so far [OU]
Intro:
This team originally started as a Trap team that tried to setup a Salamence sweep, but that didn't work out at all. When I realised my Dugtrio hadn't done anything for 5 battles (bar throwing himself in front of a Hypnosis once), I decided to drop the complete trapping concept.
However, during the tweaking of my team, I discovered the awesomeness of Sub Heatran, and decided to keep tweaking this ex-Trapteam into a new team instead of restarting from scrap.
The result was a pretty regular team, without any fancy themes that mainly workes on forcing my opponent to switch a lot and punishing those switches. Whilst chipping away Health that way I try to get as much information about my opponent's team, so that Salamence can easily sweep later on.
So, ladies and gentlemen, I present you
the name doesn't have anything to do with anything, I just thought it sounded cool. My pokémon are all named to different phobias, and I will mention the meanings of these names (in an unnecessarily dramatic way) for the people who are interested.
Taphephobia @ Leftovers
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 HP/162 Atk/96 SDef (3 Spd IVs)
Brave nature (+Atk, -Spd)
- Stealth Rock
- Flamethrower
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge / Crunch
Taphephobia is the fear of being buried alive, perhaps beneath the sand of a sandstorm, or due to an earthquake.
-Even though the set is a little odd, this has helped me out a lot. I really dislike suicide leads, and Tyranitar most of the time gets Stealth Rock up while still being able to be usefull later on in battle thanks to it's heavy specially defensive investment.
-As you can see I decided to go for a very slow, bulky set that can still pack a punch to finish off slower weakened pokémon. The low speed IVs are meant to lower the damage done by Gyro Ball. The SDef EVs were meant to survive something but I'll have to admit I forgot what exactly.
-Flamethrower is there to kill Scizor, Skarmory and Forretress who think they have a free switch in on me. Forretress and Scizor both get OHKOed, Skarmory Gets 2HKOed. Scizor needs some prediction of course; I switch out the first time Scizor switches in on Tyranitar, and OHKO it on the second try.
-Earthquake is a must to defeat Skarmory that try to Rooststall me and defeat opposing Tyranitar that don't carry Earthquake seeing as I'll probably be slower than them.
-I'm still not completely sure of the final "powerhouse" move, Stone Edge's raw power but bad accuracy versus Crunch's better accuracy and the advantage against Psychic Pokémon like Azelf. So far I've most of the time used Stone Edge.
Hylophobia @ Leftovers
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 HP/226 Def/32 Spd
Bold nature (+Def, -Atk)
- U-turn
- Thunder Wave
- Grass Knot
- Recover
Hylophobia is the fear of forests, in which anything can strike from any direction without giving you a chance to escape.
Celebi is the first part of my hit-and-run strategy. I try to paralyze as much pokémon as possible to ease the sweaping of Salamence later on. She's also my main way to sponge physical attacks and Gyarados counter.
U-Turn lets mee keep the upper hand in switching battles. The bulkiness of Celebi together with predictionless double-switching has let me catch my opponent in a neverending circle of switching more then once.
Thermophobia @ Leftovers
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 6 HP/252 Spd/252 SAtk
Timid nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Fire Blast
- Earth Power
- Substitute
- Hidden Power [Grass]
Thermophobia is the fear of high temperatures, wearing you down and making it hard to breath.
The second part of the famous heatran/grass/water combo. Before I tried this set I've always used the scarf set, but this is definitely my new favorite. It forces a lot of switches, letting me set up a free Substitute and punishing the next pokémon.
Heatran is the big star in midgame matches for this team. My opponent is forced to switch in something slow against Celebi, in fear of getting paralysed. Most pokémon celebi is afraid of are free switch in material for Heatran. My opponent then gets the choice of either letting me set up Substitute or to eat a powerfull Fire Blast. If he switches, I get a free turn of leftover recovery, sandstorm and stealth rock damage for my opponent and an attack launched from 358 SAtk of my choice. Heatran also destroys any Steel type that could cause trouble to my Salamence.
-Hidden Power Grass: The set is pretty self-explaining, except for this move. There are multiple reasons why I use it:
-First of all my team just isn't bulky enough to pull off the standard Toxic strategy.
-My team forces a lot of switching, so the damage that Toxic does is minimal.
-Seeing as Celebi is throwing around Thunder Wave all the time, there isn't much left to Toxic
-I've considered Explosion a few times mainly because my 3 "switch-circle"-pokémon can't do much to Blissey, but losing Heatran to kill one pokémon has too many disadvantages to be usefull.
Astrophobia @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 238 HP/216 Spd/56 SAtk
Timid nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Trick
- Surf
- Recover
- Ice Beam
Astrophobia is the fear of the collossal, untouchable night sky with it's stars and planets. In the blink of an eye it could crash down on you and destroy your useless existance.
The third part of the Heatran-grass-water combo, and the newest member of my team (formerly Vaporeon). I'll admit it is rather gimmick, but it works pretty well for me.
-Trick is my only weapon against Blissey, whose fatness really bothers my mainly special offensive team. But after crippling her with Trick she becomes setup bait for Salamence.
-Ice Beam is used to defeat the dragons that resist all of Heatran's moves (even though non-specially defensive sets won't like repeated hits from Fire Blast). I can already handle Gyarados and bulky waters pretty well.
-Recover is odd on a Scarfed set, but I find it to work very well with a little prediction. I needed some extra bulk on Starmie, and most of the time I only use Recover after I get rid of Choice Scarf anyways.
This part of my team has been the biggest problem while building it. I needed a water type that had some reasonable bulk, could do some reasonable damage and maybe even hurt Blissey. With Vaporeon I had the bulk and brawl, but still couldn't hit Blissey. I decided that Scizor would be enough to handle Blissey, but then a second problem came up: I didn't have enough speed. If I didn't get the time to set up Salamence and my opponent resisted Bullet Punch, it could heavily damage my team.
Starmie was a nice solution to this. I decided to mix the standard counter utility set with a Trickscarf set.
For the strategy of this set: At first I let Starmie keep its scarf, ditching out small bits of damage and keeping my opponent guessing what set I'm running. Then I either cripple a bulky pokémon with Trick or keep the scarf to finish off fast weakened Pokémon. Because it carries the speed EVs of an unscarfed set, it is undoubtably the fastest pokémon on the field even after a few opposing speed boosts.
Ballistophobia @ Choice Band
Ability: Technician
EVs: 252 HP/252 Atk/6 Spd
Adamant nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- U-turn
- Bullet Punch
- Superpower
- Pursuit
Ballistophobia is the fear of bullets. If someone aims a gun at you, there's nothing you can do to dodge the imminent death that comes out of it.
Not much to explain here. The number 1 OU pokémon nowadays, and with a reason. It has great synergy with my team as well.
-U-Turn is very usefull to restart the Heatran/Celebi/Starmie circle should I have to dodge out of it.
-Pursuit and Superpower are very usefull to kill the annoying fat Blissey that hinders my heavily special-based team.
-Bullet Punch easily picks off weakened pokémon lategame or KOs fast, fragile pokémon that Starmie cannot handle.
Thanatophobia @ Lum Berry
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 236 HP/64 Atk/92 Spd/116 SDef
Careful nature (+SDef, -SAtk)
- Dragon Dance
- Dragon Claw
- Earthquake
- Roost
Thanatophobia is the fear of dying, the inevitable end of everything you ever held dear.
This set is truly amazing. Being able to get up another Dragon Dance against water pokémon that think they can KO you with their Ice attacks will most of the time result in a sweep.
I usually save this for lategame, but on few occasions I'm able to get up two Dragon Dances midgame and wreak havoc. After that whatever is left falls to Scizor's Bullet Punch.
The biggest hindrance for this set was status, random freezes mainly, but Lum Berry solves this. Normally Lum goes hand in hand with Outrage, but I hate getting stuck in one move. After two Dragon Dances and a Roost, not much suvives Dragon Claw anyway.
Problems:
Because my RMT is very long and most people on the internet are lazy, I decided to sum up the two main difficulties with my team, so that at least those are getting covered.
1. Tyranitar
This pokémon is the biggest candidate for being replaced. Even though it works fine, it isn't the best of leads. Sandstorm is very usefull for negating my opponent's Leftovers, but it can hinder Celebi and Starmie greatly. The main reason I haven't replaced it for something that can set up Spikes is that I really love the Flamethrower trap it can pull off on the extremely common Scizor, which is a big hindrance to my Salamence.
As I said before, I'm still not sure which powerhouse move I should be using, Stone Edge or Crunch.
2. Starmie
Starmie doesn't pack a lot of power sadly. It can only barely 2HKO the standard scarftran with this spread.
I'm very open to suggestions here. Just like Tyranitar Starmie has worked fine so far, especially if you consider how much roles it has to fill in. But if anyone has better suggestions, I will gladly try them out. A Better EVspreads could also help a lot.
Thanks for (at least partially) reading my RMT.
Intro:
This team originally started as a Trap team that tried to setup a Salamence sweep, but that didn't work out at all. When I realised my Dugtrio hadn't done anything for 5 battles (bar throwing himself in front of a Hypnosis once), I decided to drop the complete trapping concept.
However, during the tweaking of my team, I discovered the awesomeness of Sub Heatran, and decided to keep tweaking this ex-Trapteam into a new team instead of restarting from scrap.
The result was a pretty regular team, without any fancy themes that mainly workes on forcing my opponent to switch a lot and punishing those switches. Whilst chipping away Health that way I try to get as much information about my opponent's team, so that Salamence can easily sweep later on.
So, ladies and gentlemen, I present you
Team Phobia
the name doesn't have anything to do with anything, I just thought it sounded cool. My pokémon are all named to different phobias, and I will mention the meanings of these names (in an unnecessarily dramatic way) for the people who are interested.
Taphephobia @ Leftovers
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 HP/162 Atk/96 SDef (3 Spd IVs)
Brave nature (+Atk, -Spd)
- Stealth Rock
- Flamethrower
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge / Crunch
Taphephobia is the fear of being buried alive, perhaps beneath the sand of a sandstorm, or due to an earthquake.
-Even though the set is a little odd, this has helped me out a lot. I really dislike suicide leads, and Tyranitar most of the time gets Stealth Rock up while still being able to be usefull later on in battle thanks to it's heavy specially defensive investment.
-As you can see I decided to go for a very slow, bulky set that can still pack a punch to finish off slower weakened pokémon. The low speed IVs are meant to lower the damage done by Gyro Ball. The SDef EVs were meant to survive something but I'll have to admit I forgot what exactly.
-Flamethrower is there to kill Scizor, Skarmory and Forretress who think they have a free switch in on me. Forretress and Scizor both get OHKOed, Skarmory Gets 2HKOed. Scizor needs some prediction of course; I switch out the first time Scizor switches in on Tyranitar, and OHKO it on the second try.
-Earthquake is a must to defeat Skarmory that try to Rooststall me and defeat opposing Tyranitar that don't carry Earthquake seeing as I'll probably be slower than them.
-I'm still not completely sure of the final "powerhouse" move, Stone Edge's raw power but bad accuracy versus Crunch's better accuracy and the advantage against Psychic Pokémon like Azelf. So far I've most of the time used Stone Edge.
Hylophobia @ Leftovers
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 HP/226 Def/32 Spd
Bold nature (+Def, -Atk)
- U-turn
- Thunder Wave
- Grass Knot
- Recover
Hylophobia is the fear of forests, in which anything can strike from any direction without giving you a chance to escape.
Celebi is the first part of my hit-and-run strategy. I try to paralyze as much pokémon as possible to ease the sweaping of Salamence later on. She's also my main way to sponge physical attacks and Gyarados counter.
U-Turn lets mee keep the upper hand in switching battles. The bulkiness of Celebi together with predictionless double-switching has let me catch my opponent in a neverending circle of switching more then once.
Thermophobia @ Leftovers
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 6 HP/252 Spd/252 SAtk
Timid nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Fire Blast
- Earth Power
- Substitute
- Hidden Power [Grass]
Thermophobia is the fear of high temperatures, wearing you down and making it hard to breath.
The second part of the famous heatran/grass/water combo. Before I tried this set I've always used the scarf set, but this is definitely my new favorite. It forces a lot of switches, letting me set up a free Substitute and punishing the next pokémon.
Heatran is the big star in midgame matches for this team. My opponent is forced to switch in something slow against Celebi, in fear of getting paralysed. Most pokémon celebi is afraid of are free switch in material for Heatran. My opponent then gets the choice of either letting me set up Substitute or to eat a powerfull Fire Blast. If he switches, I get a free turn of leftover recovery, sandstorm and stealth rock damage for my opponent and an attack launched from 358 SAtk of my choice. Heatran also destroys any Steel type that could cause trouble to my Salamence.
-Hidden Power Grass: The set is pretty self-explaining, except for this move. There are multiple reasons why I use it:
-First of all my team just isn't bulky enough to pull off the standard Toxic strategy.
-My team forces a lot of switching, so the damage that Toxic does is minimal.
-Seeing as Celebi is throwing around Thunder Wave all the time, there isn't much left to Toxic
-I've considered Explosion a few times mainly because my 3 "switch-circle"-pokémon can't do much to Blissey, but losing Heatran to kill one pokémon has too many disadvantages to be usefull.
Astrophobia @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 238 HP/216 Spd/56 SAtk
Timid nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Trick
- Surf
- Recover
- Ice Beam
Astrophobia is the fear of the collossal, untouchable night sky with it's stars and planets. In the blink of an eye it could crash down on you and destroy your useless existance.
The third part of the Heatran-grass-water combo, and the newest member of my team (formerly Vaporeon). I'll admit it is rather gimmick, but it works pretty well for me.
-Trick is my only weapon against Blissey, whose fatness really bothers my mainly special offensive team. But after crippling her with Trick she becomes setup bait for Salamence.
-Ice Beam is used to defeat the dragons that resist all of Heatran's moves (even though non-specially defensive sets won't like repeated hits from Fire Blast). I can already handle Gyarados and bulky waters pretty well.
-Recover is odd on a Scarfed set, but I find it to work very well with a little prediction. I needed some extra bulk on Starmie, and most of the time I only use Recover after I get rid of Choice Scarf anyways.
This part of my team has been the biggest problem while building it. I needed a water type that had some reasonable bulk, could do some reasonable damage and maybe even hurt Blissey. With Vaporeon I had the bulk and brawl, but still couldn't hit Blissey. I decided that Scizor would be enough to handle Blissey, but then a second problem came up: I didn't have enough speed. If I didn't get the time to set up Salamence and my opponent resisted Bullet Punch, it could heavily damage my team.
Starmie was a nice solution to this. I decided to mix the standard counter utility set with a Trickscarf set.
For the strategy of this set: At first I let Starmie keep its scarf, ditching out small bits of damage and keeping my opponent guessing what set I'm running. Then I either cripple a bulky pokémon with Trick or keep the scarf to finish off fast weakened Pokémon. Because it carries the speed EVs of an unscarfed set, it is undoubtably the fastest pokémon on the field even after a few opposing speed boosts.
Ballistophobia @ Choice Band
Ability: Technician
EVs: 252 HP/252 Atk/6 Spd
Adamant nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- U-turn
- Bullet Punch
- Superpower
- Pursuit
Ballistophobia is the fear of bullets. If someone aims a gun at you, there's nothing you can do to dodge the imminent death that comes out of it.
Not much to explain here. The number 1 OU pokémon nowadays, and with a reason. It has great synergy with my team as well.
-U-Turn is very usefull to restart the Heatran/Celebi/Starmie circle should I have to dodge out of it.
-Pursuit and Superpower are very usefull to kill the annoying fat Blissey that hinders my heavily special-based team.
-Bullet Punch easily picks off weakened pokémon lategame or KOs fast, fragile pokémon that Starmie cannot handle.
Thanatophobia @ Lum Berry
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 236 HP/64 Atk/92 Spd/116 SDef
Careful nature (+SDef, -SAtk)
- Dragon Dance
- Dragon Claw
- Earthquake
- Roost
Thanatophobia is the fear of dying, the inevitable end of everything you ever held dear.
This set is truly amazing. Being able to get up another Dragon Dance against water pokémon that think they can KO you with their Ice attacks will most of the time result in a sweep.
I usually save this for lategame, but on few occasions I'm able to get up two Dragon Dances midgame and wreak havoc. After that whatever is left falls to Scizor's Bullet Punch.
The biggest hindrance for this set was status, random freezes mainly, but Lum Berry solves this. Normally Lum goes hand in hand with Outrage, but I hate getting stuck in one move. After two Dragon Dances and a Roost, not much suvives Dragon Claw anyway.
Problems:
Because my RMT is very long and most people on the internet are lazy, I decided to sum up the two main difficulties with my team, so that at least those are getting covered.
1. Tyranitar
This pokémon is the biggest candidate for being replaced. Even though it works fine, it isn't the best of leads. Sandstorm is very usefull for negating my opponent's Leftovers, but it can hinder Celebi and Starmie greatly. The main reason I haven't replaced it for something that can set up Spikes is that I really love the Flamethrower trap it can pull off on the extremely common Scizor, which is a big hindrance to my Salamence.
As I said before, I'm still not sure which powerhouse move I should be using, Stone Edge or Crunch.
2. Starmie
Starmie doesn't pack a lot of power sadly. It can only barely 2HKO the standard scarftran with this spread.
I'm very open to suggestions here. Just like Tyranitar Starmie has worked fine so far, especially if you consider how much roles it has to fill in. But if anyone has better suggestions, I will gladly try them out. A Better EVspreads could also help a lot.
Thanks for (at least partially) reading my RMT.
