Hey guys, Bowl Cut here-- 5th Generation?! Yes, I recently got back from 4th Generation, and I plan on staying on 5th Generation because it is a lot of fun, especially with Blaziken not running around anymore, even though he was one of my favorite Pokemon to begin with. ANYWAYS, I am getting WAY off track here. This team focuses on getting sandstorm up as well as Stealth Rock and Spikes to ease the late game Garchomp sweep (or a possible Scizor sweep, but no one cares about him!). The theme of the team? I had two songs in mind. "The Guillotine" and "This War Is Ours", both of which are from Escape The Fate. I decided to go with "The Guillotine" because this team's primary goal is to sweep with Garchomp (which is the guillotine!), even though it could be considered "This War Is Ours" as well, but any weather team could be named after that song. I have shared this team with a lot of my close friends, such as BKC (who used the team to a great degree of success) and Jaxx, and it has worked well for both of them and the others as well. If you are for some reason reading this after the possible Garchomp ban, then consider this team outdated. Without further ado, here is "The Guillotine"!
Skarmory, if anything, got a huge buff since the past Generation. Sturdy, being the useless ability it was in 3rd and 4th Generations, is now a great ability this time around. Skarmory can literally take any attack in the game when it's at full health, and it isn't that much of a problem keeping it at full health due to Roost and the occasional Leftovers recovery. Skarmory's role in this team is to support the team with entry hazards (Spikes) and phaze (Whirlwind) physical sweepers such as Excadrill, Garchomp, Scrafty and etc. to stop their very unneeded sweeps. That's three moves out of the way, next up we have Brave Bird, which is my attacking move of choice, because it does decent damage to anything that doesn't resist Flying-. That's really about it for Brave Bird, it's pretty much a last resort, to say the least. In comparison to Skarmory's other moves, I only use Brave Bird like 10% of the time.
Big boss Tyranitar, much much much much much much different from what it was in 4th Generation. In 4th Generation, it was commonly seen to be either a check to many of the metagame's threats with its Choice Scarf or a complete power house with its Choice Band, or both with Dragon Dance. Now in 5th Generation, he is a totally different story. He is more of a tank in this Genetation, being 2HKO'd-4HKO'd by most attacks in the game (that it doesn't resist), and counter-attacking with Fire Blast, Ice Beam, Crunch, Superpower and etc., or take the opportunity to set up Stealth Rock or Pursuit something on the switch. I chose Fire Blast, Superpower and Crunch for my attacking moves, so Tyranitar will have the ability to OHKO Skarmory (assuming it isn't at full health) and outspeeding and surprise-killing opposing Tyranitar and still keep my Chople Berry for the possible Thundurus. Crunch is there for the obligatory STAB move as well as for hitting Pringles-- Jellicent. Stealth Rock is very self explanatory.
The team's answer to Terrakion, you know, the thing that can single-handedly 2HKO my entire team? Yeah, that thing. Gliscor is a great Pokemon this Generation, although he is quite different from his last Generation counterpart. He's more of a sturdy sweeper instead of the commonly seen Britscor stall-breaker in 4th Generation. Gliscor's main thing this Generation is Poison Heal - it prevents you from other unneeded status and heals you every turn for 1/12 of your health, which is slightly more than Leftovers. With all the cool things Gliscor got this Generation, if you choose to go with Poison Heal, you are going to have to stick with not having any form of reliable recovery, such as Roost, and it doesn't have the ability to set up Stealth Rock. With all of this in mind, this moveset is very straight forward. Taunt is there for the possible Ferrothorn (hell it's #2 in usage, of course it's going to be on 90% of the teams) as well as letting me beat Skarmory and etc.. Earthquake and Ice Fang are my attacking moves of choice, having a STAB move that has 100 Base Power without any boosts is too good to pass up and having some sort of attack that helps you take out dragons is also useful. Swords Dance, although it doesn't look like it, makes Gliscor a really strong Pokemon and a somewhat hard sweeper to stop, especially with Taunt.
Latios. It's a plane shaped fictional animal that can call meteors from the sky, attack with its tornado-summoning pulse and call tidal waves from the sea itself. Makes sense? Nope, but it's Pokemon, so no surprise. Anyway, this thing packs a punch on every one of its attacks (besides Trick). Draco Meteor hits HARD. REALLY hard. It's almost incomparable to how hard it hits. Surf also hits hard, but not as hard. Dragon Pulse is just there for the purpose of late-game cleaning, as a -1 Draco Meteor won't exactly kill anything semi-bulky. Trick, if used in the right turn, can be the end of Ferrothorn, Chansey, Blissey, pretty much any wall. I can't really be creative with explaning Choiced Pokemon, because they are really straight forward, so I apologize.
Rotom-W. It's a washing machine that can pump water, attack with the same "hidden power" as Latios' and attack with an electric ball and run away. Oh, and it can Trick. Rotom-W isn't exactly the big bad powerhouse like Latios, but it's more of a thing where you trick people into thinking that you're going to be leading with Skarmory or Tyranitar, and then surprise the hell out of them with a Rotom-W. Rotom-W isn't really seen as a scarfer, the tanking Rotom-W as well as the Choice Specs variant are somewhat more common (at least from what I've seen), so it usually catches people off and hits what they decide to lead with with a Volt Switch to the face (assuming they don't lead with a Ground- type). If they do end up leading with a pure Ground- type, then that's where Hydro Pump comes in, but I usually don't either see people lead with Ground- types, or start the match off with a Hydro Pump. Hidden Power does the same thing it does for Latios, except much weaker, so does Trick - I love seeing Scarfed Ferrothorns, puts me in a good mood all the time.
The guillotine. Let this thing set up when its counters are out and it's good game right then and there. A very straight-forward set once again, Swords Dance whenever you get a good opportunity and not when the opponent has his Skarmory out, then proceed to sweep with Dragon Claw, Earthquake or Fire Fang. People may ask me "why the hell are you running Dragon Claw over Outrage?!?!?!??!?!", and my answer is "Because one of them lets me switch moves and my sweep doesn't stop because of a random Excadrill deciding to come in". The reason I went with Fire Fang over anything else was to OHKO Ferrothorn - letting that thing Leech Seed and then Protect on me isn't exactly a good thing, but if Sand Veil is activated, Leech Seed will barely hit anyway. Garchomp is exactly the Pokemon worthy of the title "The Game Shark", because you'll end up shouting the word "hax" more than you think because of a miss due to Sand Veil.
There's the team I've been using for the past couple of days, unless the metagame won't change much (which I highly doubt), you shouldn't bother writing an essay for the purpose of a rate.
I'll leave it at here for now, peace guys!
