This team has been pretty successful in UU. It has brought my score up to around 1400. So here we go.
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Team at a glance:
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Spiritomb (M) @ Spooky Plate
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 244 HP/48 Atk/12 Spd/204 SAtk
Quiet nature (+SAtk, -Spd)
- Shadow Ball
- Hidden Power [Fighting]
- Shadow Sneak
- Pursuit
This lead has been very successful. I notice often times people will think it's a more defensive type of spiritomb and use taunt on it as the first move, giving me a free hit with a shadow ball or HP Fighting. Also, not having any weaknesses is definitely a plus, leaving me very confident that it will be able to withstand at least 1 hit from anything that has not used a stat-up move. Being immune to normal and fighting attacks also makes it very helpful against leads that use fake-out or these toxic orb, facade clefables I see occasionally. Shadow sneak definitely helps finish people off as shadow ball usually does a good amount of damage. It's usually easy to predict a switch out if someone uses Stealth rock and I damaged a little more than half of their health.
This guy is pretty much always able to take down the lead, or least kill one opponent before it dies. I prefer spooky plate over leftovers since he's not particularly bulky, and not life orb because he's bulky enough to take a hit and I don't want the health loss to ruin that.
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Claydol @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP/144 Def/114 SAtk
Bold nature (+Def, -Atk)
- Earth Power
- Ice Beam
- Stealth Rock
- Rapid Spin
By being bulky physically, and resists rock and fighting, and immune to ground, he's pretty good at absorbing blows he's resistant too. His levitate ability and ground typing makes him less susceptible to the field traps that he spins away. Ice beam helps be defeat donphan, and torterra if it's already weakened some and no speed EV's, which it usually doesn't. Earth power is very helpful to kill these physically defensive pokemon like aggron and steelix.
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Rotom @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP/252 Def/4 SAtk
Bold nature (+Def, -Atk)
- Discharge
- Will-o-wisp
- Rest
- Sleep Talk
A very good status absorber. Though I concentrated its defenses on physical defense, it is often OHKO'd by someone using a SD'd neutral damaging attack. Usually I try to will-o-wisp them which solves the problem. I usually try to burn physical attackers, ground types, and walls with non-rest healing abilities, like cresselia, to add more damage to them, forcing them to heal more. Discharge usually used as a damaging move with the higher chance to paralyze as a bonus, helps out a lot with water types, assuming rotom survives. Having another levitate and another ghost just gives me another person to switch to if I expect a fake-out or EQ.
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Hitmontop (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Technician
EVs: 252 HP/252 Atk/4 Def
Adamant nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Fake Out
- Mach Punch
- Bullet Punch
- Close Combat
This is the guy that saves my team from pokemon that are very fast and very powerful. I don't use life orb because he dies way too quickly and often he is needed the entire match, so he's often the last one to day on my team. Fake out and bullet punch will do about the same amount of damage, so it's easy to tell if a bullet punch after the fake out will be enough to finish off the opponent. Mach punch does a little more damage than fake out due to the stab, so it's also easy to estimate if mach punch will be enough. Close combat is there mainly to hit the slow opponents that are weak against it, like clefable, chansey, aggron, or if the opponent uses wish and/or I expect a switch next turn.
Often times what I find myself doing though is that if the opponent is very powerful and particularly bulky, I often use fake-out, and switch to another poke to take the hit and die(usually) and switch back to hitmontop, use fake-out,and if there is too much health, I'll switch out to a different one to take the hit, etc...This potentially causes me to lose many members of my team because of how much I value this member of the team :p
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Registeel @ Leftovers
Ability: Clear Body
EVs: 252 HP/100 Atk/156 SDef
Careful nature (+SDef, -SAtk)
- Iron Head
- Ice Punch
- Earthquake
- Thunder Wave
My special wall that can t-wave fast special sweepers. I often try to t-wave first. The only time I really attack with him is if my attacks are super affective. Exceptions to this are when I'm against very delicate sweepers, like mismagius. Suprisingly, he is very rarely OHKO'd by physical fire attacks and EQ's if the poke hasn't used a stat up move.
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Drapion (M) @ leftovers
Ability: Battle Armor
EVs: 252 HP/4 Atk/252 Def
Impish nature (+Def, -SAtk)
- Taunt
- Crunch
- Knock Off
- Whirlwind
His relatively high base speed (95) usually makes him faster than walls I tend to put him up against, like cresselia, umbreon, and spiritomb. Being able to taunt those that give status affects is very helpful. He often gets burned, but doing damage isn't the real reason he's on the team anyway. Whirlwind is very helpful and blowing away substitutes and stat raises, and knock is just handy against walls with leftovers. So far I haven't noticed very many times where he walls certain sweepers, despite me putting everything in physical defense and HP. But his utility has proven very useful regardless.
OVERALL:
Usually how a games comes out is that I kill the lead with spiritomb. Sometimes they are able to do a weather affect, set up a stealth rock or spikes, do some damage to spiritomb, or sometimes accomplish nothing at all (usually happens if they taunt). If they switch to someone I expect a paralyze affect from, I switch to rotom, but I often stay in and attack the second person with spiritomb too. I usually don't switch out spiritomb unless one of my pokes is a very good counter against the opponent. Registeel usually takes the special attacks that would usually kill claydol and rotom, and those two take the fighting and ground attacks that would kill registeel. Drapion usually takes the annoying walls and I usually use hitmontop as the revenge killer or switch to him if I expect a stat up move from an opponent that hitmontop does at least neutral damage to.
I find my team having the most trouble with rain dance teams. Since I don't have anyone resistant against water, I often take a lot of damage from them, though that doesn't mean I can't do anything against them. Spiritomb is almost never OHKO'd, and is usually able to get a shadow ball and shadow sneak off before it dies when it's up against a strong water type in the rain. Hitmontop is also able to do quite a bit of damage with fake-out doing free damage to everyone. I lose up to a third of the rain dance teams that I face.
I suppose fire attacks have a similar problem since I have no resistance against fire, but fire types are usually not bulky and are usually killed easier. So they are not as big of a problem.
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Team at a glance:
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Spiritomb (M) @ Spooky Plate
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 244 HP/48 Atk/12 Spd/204 SAtk
Quiet nature (+SAtk, -Spd)
- Shadow Ball
- Hidden Power [Fighting]
- Shadow Sneak
- Pursuit
This lead has been very successful. I notice often times people will think it's a more defensive type of spiritomb and use taunt on it as the first move, giving me a free hit with a shadow ball or HP Fighting. Also, not having any weaknesses is definitely a plus, leaving me very confident that it will be able to withstand at least 1 hit from anything that has not used a stat-up move. Being immune to normal and fighting attacks also makes it very helpful against leads that use fake-out or these toxic orb, facade clefables I see occasionally. Shadow sneak definitely helps finish people off as shadow ball usually does a good amount of damage. It's usually easy to predict a switch out if someone uses Stealth rock and I damaged a little more than half of their health.
This guy is pretty much always able to take down the lead, or least kill one opponent before it dies. I prefer spooky plate over leftovers since he's not particularly bulky, and not life orb because he's bulky enough to take a hit and I don't want the health loss to ruin that.
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Claydol @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP/144 Def/114 SAtk
Bold nature (+Def, -Atk)
- Earth Power
- Ice Beam
- Stealth Rock
- Rapid Spin
By being bulky physically, and resists rock and fighting, and immune to ground, he's pretty good at absorbing blows he's resistant too. His levitate ability and ground typing makes him less susceptible to the field traps that he spins away. Ice beam helps be defeat donphan, and torterra if it's already weakened some and no speed EV's, which it usually doesn't. Earth power is very helpful to kill these physically defensive pokemon like aggron and steelix.
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Rotom @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP/252 Def/4 SAtk
Bold nature (+Def, -Atk)
- Discharge
- Will-o-wisp
- Rest
- Sleep Talk
A very good status absorber. Though I concentrated its defenses on physical defense, it is often OHKO'd by someone using a SD'd neutral damaging attack. Usually I try to will-o-wisp them which solves the problem. I usually try to burn physical attackers, ground types, and walls with non-rest healing abilities, like cresselia, to add more damage to them, forcing them to heal more. Discharge usually used as a damaging move with the higher chance to paralyze as a bonus, helps out a lot with water types, assuming rotom survives. Having another levitate and another ghost just gives me another person to switch to if I expect a fake-out or EQ.
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Hitmontop (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Technician
EVs: 252 HP/252 Atk/4 Def
Adamant nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Fake Out
- Mach Punch
- Bullet Punch
- Close Combat
This is the guy that saves my team from pokemon that are very fast and very powerful. I don't use life orb because he dies way too quickly and often he is needed the entire match, so he's often the last one to day on my team. Fake out and bullet punch will do about the same amount of damage, so it's easy to tell if a bullet punch after the fake out will be enough to finish off the opponent. Mach punch does a little more damage than fake out due to the stab, so it's also easy to estimate if mach punch will be enough. Close combat is there mainly to hit the slow opponents that are weak against it, like clefable, chansey, aggron, or if the opponent uses wish and/or I expect a switch next turn.
Often times what I find myself doing though is that if the opponent is very powerful and particularly bulky, I often use fake-out, and switch to another poke to take the hit and die(usually) and switch back to hitmontop, use fake-out,and if there is too much health, I'll switch out to a different one to take the hit, etc...This potentially causes me to lose many members of my team because of how much I value this member of the team :p
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Registeel @ Leftovers
Ability: Clear Body
EVs: 252 HP/100 Atk/156 SDef
Careful nature (+SDef, -SAtk)
- Iron Head
- Ice Punch
- Earthquake
- Thunder Wave
My special wall that can t-wave fast special sweepers. I often try to t-wave first. The only time I really attack with him is if my attacks are super affective. Exceptions to this are when I'm against very delicate sweepers, like mismagius. Suprisingly, he is very rarely OHKO'd by physical fire attacks and EQ's if the poke hasn't used a stat up move.
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Drapion (M) @ leftovers
Ability: Battle Armor
EVs: 252 HP/4 Atk/252 Def
Impish nature (+Def, -SAtk)
- Taunt
- Crunch
- Knock Off
- Whirlwind
His relatively high base speed (95) usually makes him faster than walls I tend to put him up against, like cresselia, umbreon, and spiritomb. Being able to taunt those that give status affects is very helpful. He often gets burned, but doing damage isn't the real reason he's on the team anyway. Whirlwind is very helpful and blowing away substitutes and stat raises, and knock is just handy against walls with leftovers. So far I haven't noticed very many times where he walls certain sweepers, despite me putting everything in physical defense and HP. But his utility has proven very useful regardless.
OVERALL:
Usually how a games comes out is that I kill the lead with spiritomb. Sometimes they are able to do a weather affect, set up a stealth rock or spikes, do some damage to spiritomb, or sometimes accomplish nothing at all (usually happens if they taunt). If they switch to someone I expect a paralyze affect from, I switch to rotom, but I often stay in and attack the second person with spiritomb too. I usually don't switch out spiritomb unless one of my pokes is a very good counter against the opponent. Registeel usually takes the special attacks that would usually kill claydol and rotom, and those two take the fighting and ground attacks that would kill registeel. Drapion usually takes the annoying walls and I usually use hitmontop as the revenge killer or switch to him if I expect a stat up move from an opponent that hitmontop does at least neutral damage to.
I find my team having the most trouble with rain dance teams. Since I don't have anyone resistant against water, I often take a lot of damage from them, though that doesn't mean I can't do anything against them. Spiritomb is almost never OHKO'd, and is usually able to get a shadow ball and shadow sneak off before it dies when it's up against a strong water type in the rain. Hitmontop is also able to do quite a bit of damage with fake-out doing free damage to everyone. I lose up to a third of the rain dance teams that I face.
I suppose fire attacks have a similar problem since I have no resistance against fire, but fire types are usually not bulky and are usually killed easier. So they are not as big of a problem.
