Hey guys,
First time posting on here but have been lurking and reading stuff for a couple of years. Have been jamming on Pokemon Showdown etc in the background for a while as well but haven't put much effort into it, but now that I'm having so much fun with X and Y I thought I might actually try and get a bit better at this.
Anyway, as per the title, this is a trick room team that I'm working on at the moment. I've been through quite a few different pokes in different spots on the team and I'm having a bit of trouble finding what the most generally effective team around the trick room playstyle is, and I'm interested to hear what you guys think, since I imagine 90% of you know a hell of a lot more about this than I do.
I know that it's kind of a gimmick. Some people will say it definitely is, and other people will say its 100% legit and not a gimmick. Either way, zero fucks given. I love the idea behind it. I like taking a bunch of slow bulky pokemon and basically smashing them into your opponent until you brute force your way to victory. At this point i'm not keen to drop trick room and start from scratch, but none of the pokemon I'm listing below I am particularly attached to, so all suggestions are beyond welcome.
Anyway, here's the team:
Porygon2 @ Eviolite
Ability: Trace
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SAtk / 4 SDef
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Spd
- Trick Room
- Recover
- Ice Beam
- Thunderbolt
Porygon2 is usually my go-to lead unless I can see an obvious counter. Pretty standard set for him. I've experimented a bit with a more specially defensive EV spread, and from experience the eviolite tends to do enough on its own, allowing me to invest more in special attack.
Slowbro @ Life Orb
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 SAtk / 252 HP / 4 SDef
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Spd
- Trick Room
- Scald
- Fire Blast
- Ice Beam
Slowbro I've flip-flopped from the offensive set above to a full defensive spread (With slack-off instead of Ice beam) so many times i've lost count. The reason I'm currently sitting on the offensive one is because slowbro has so much survivability thanks to his defensive stats and regenerator. He tends to wind up being my last pokemon 80% of the time. (Probably less, but it sure as hell seems like a lot.) Games I've lost from this position have almost always been due to him lacking in punch, which the other coverage move and the SAtk EVs help out with. I'm kinda at a loss with him here, because I feel like dropping the defensive EV's takes away the survivability that actually lead me to build him like this anyway. It's like a horrible spiral of "WTF AM I DOING" and any advice on this would be greatly appreciated.
Reuniclus @ Life Orb
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 SAtk / 252 HP / 4 Def
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Spd
- Psychic
- Focus Blast
- Shadow Ball
- Trick Room
Up until this point, Reuniclus was my staple. My main man. My rawdog westside homie that had my back when a couple of guys, who were up to no good, started making trouble in my neighbourhood. Now, I'm not so sure. What you might notice with this team, is that it's heavily special based at this point. One of what I think is it's most glaring weaknesses. Reuniclus is awesome under trick room. He sets it himself, and then sweeps himself. This has been so effective that it first lead me to drop the defensive spreads of my other two setters and play them like ghetto reuniclus. While he's BETTER at it than they are, I still need their bulk I think, but at the same time, I don't know if Reuniclus should stay or go.
Mawile-Mega @ Mawilite
Ability: Huge Power
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 HP / 4 SDef
Brave Nature
- Play Rough
- Sucker Punch
- Swords Dance
- Fire Fang
Wow. This thing turned out to be a shit-ton better than I thought it would be. It WRECKS shit. like, REALLY wrecks shit. I don't normally advocate using swords dance on a trick room team, but I've found it works quite well if you can predict a protect or a switch that I couldn't score any damage off of. I don't use it HUGELY often, but it's shown merit in those small situations. I'm actually considering running another poke with a stat booster as well, especially since stall is such a pain for trick room. Speaking of stall...
Exploud @ Choice Specs
Ability: Scrappy
EVs: 252 SAtk / 252 HP / 4 Def
Quiet Nature
- Boomburst
- Flamethrower
- Ice Beam
- Surf
Can't find the topic, but I saw someone else with this thing on their trick room team and gave it a whirl. Boomburst basically lets me laugh at peoples substitutes. Lets be very clear here. I absolutely, passionately HATE substitute. It makes me want to grab a baby and use it to beat to death another baby. The fact that it's just as useful on things that aren't behind a sub is just icing on the cake as far as I'm concerned. That being said, I realise that makes Exploud VERY one-dimensional and VERY predictable. There are definitely a few other pokes I'm considering for this slot.
Mienshao @ Life Orb
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spd / 4 SDef
Jolly Nature
- Fake Out
- U-turn
- Stone Edge
- High Jump Kick
Mienshao is something that has come and gone from my team quite often. Completely useless when trick room is up, but quite a useful crutch when it's not. Most of what mienshao does is switch in when trick room is down, throw out a fake out -> U turn combo (about as close as you can get to 'free' damage)and heal any damage he took using regenerator. If slowbro doesn't end up being my last living pokemon, it's almost always mienshao when he's on the team. At which point out come the #YOLO High Jump Kicks which have lost me about as many games as they've won me. Not sure what other speedy pokes give me the same constant damage and end game power as mienshao, but I am open to suggestions.
I would like to give you guys a list of other pokemon I've been considering, but I swear I've looked at literally everything with less than 100 speed at some point. Scizor, Conkeldurr and Eelektross I think are probably three that I have switched in the most. Though thanks to me having very little knowledge of the game, we might as well assume I haven't looked at anything.
Anyway, the first thing that jumps out about this team is how heavily invested in offense it is. I feel I'm getting the most out of trick room this way, but I can also understand that may not be the best approach to the meta, particularly when I'm running a team that doesn't conform to the meta anyway. The team feels more 'complete' than It has done in the past, but I'm still not 100% happy with it, and to be honest I'm not sure why. I don't know if it's because I feel I'm to heavily invested on the special side, or if I'm just plain bored of my 3 core trick-roomers.
I really do appreciate any advice or suggestions you guys can give me. I'm really enjoying playing with trick room and I would like to explore it's possibilities a lot further.
Cheers guys, looking forward to the replies.
First time posting on here but have been lurking and reading stuff for a couple of years. Have been jamming on Pokemon Showdown etc in the background for a while as well but haven't put much effort into it, but now that I'm having so much fun with X and Y I thought I might actually try and get a bit better at this.
Anyway, as per the title, this is a trick room team that I'm working on at the moment. I've been through quite a few different pokes in different spots on the team and I'm having a bit of trouble finding what the most generally effective team around the trick room playstyle is, and I'm interested to hear what you guys think, since I imagine 90% of you know a hell of a lot more about this than I do.
I know that it's kind of a gimmick. Some people will say it definitely is, and other people will say its 100% legit and not a gimmick. Either way, zero fucks given. I love the idea behind it. I like taking a bunch of slow bulky pokemon and basically smashing them into your opponent until you brute force your way to victory. At this point i'm not keen to drop trick room and start from scratch, but none of the pokemon I'm listing below I am particularly attached to, so all suggestions are beyond welcome.
Anyway, here's the team:
Porygon2 @ Eviolite
Ability: Trace
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SAtk / 4 SDef
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Spd
- Trick Room
- Recover
- Ice Beam
- Thunderbolt
Porygon2 is usually my go-to lead unless I can see an obvious counter. Pretty standard set for him. I've experimented a bit with a more specially defensive EV spread, and from experience the eviolite tends to do enough on its own, allowing me to invest more in special attack.
Slowbro @ Life Orb
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 SAtk / 252 HP / 4 SDef
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Spd
- Trick Room
- Scald
- Fire Blast
- Ice Beam
Slowbro I've flip-flopped from the offensive set above to a full defensive spread (With slack-off instead of Ice beam) so many times i've lost count. The reason I'm currently sitting on the offensive one is because slowbro has so much survivability thanks to his defensive stats and regenerator. He tends to wind up being my last pokemon 80% of the time. (Probably less, but it sure as hell seems like a lot.) Games I've lost from this position have almost always been due to him lacking in punch, which the other coverage move and the SAtk EVs help out with. I'm kinda at a loss with him here, because I feel like dropping the defensive EV's takes away the survivability that actually lead me to build him like this anyway. It's like a horrible spiral of "WTF AM I DOING" and any advice on this would be greatly appreciated.
Reuniclus @ Life Orb
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 SAtk / 252 HP / 4 Def
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Spd
- Psychic
- Focus Blast
- Shadow Ball
- Trick Room
Up until this point, Reuniclus was my staple. My main man. My rawdog westside homie that had my back when a couple of guys, who were up to no good, started making trouble in my neighbourhood. Now, I'm not so sure. What you might notice with this team, is that it's heavily special based at this point. One of what I think is it's most glaring weaknesses. Reuniclus is awesome under trick room. He sets it himself, and then sweeps himself. This has been so effective that it first lead me to drop the defensive spreads of my other two setters and play them like ghetto reuniclus. While he's BETTER at it than they are, I still need their bulk I think, but at the same time, I don't know if Reuniclus should stay or go.
Mawile-Mega @ Mawilite
Ability: Huge Power
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 HP / 4 SDef
Brave Nature
- Play Rough
- Sucker Punch
- Swords Dance
- Fire Fang
Wow. This thing turned out to be a shit-ton better than I thought it would be. It WRECKS shit. like, REALLY wrecks shit. I don't normally advocate using swords dance on a trick room team, but I've found it works quite well if you can predict a protect or a switch that I couldn't score any damage off of. I don't use it HUGELY often, but it's shown merit in those small situations. I'm actually considering running another poke with a stat booster as well, especially since stall is such a pain for trick room. Speaking of stall...
Exploud @ Choice Specs
Ability: Scrappy
EVs: 252 SAtk / 252 HP / 4 Def
Quiet Nature
- Boomburst
- Flamethrower
- Ice Beam
- Surf
Can't find the topic, but I saw someone else with this thing on their trick room team and gave it a whirl. Boomburst basically lets me laugh at peoples substitutes. Lets be very clear here. I absolutely, passionately HATE substitute. It makes me want to grab a baby and use it to beat to death another baby. The fact that it's just as useful on things that aren't behind a sub is just icing on the cake as far as I'm concerned. That being said, I realise that makes Exploud VERY one-dimensional and VERY predictable. There are definitely a few other pokes I'm considering for this slot.
Mienshao @ Life Orb
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spd / 4 SDef
Jolly Nature
- Fake Out
- U-turn
- Stone Edge
- High Jump Kick
Mienshao is something that has come and gone from my team quite often. Completely useless when trick room is up, but quite a useful crutch when it's not. Most of what mienshao does is switch in when trick room is down, throw out a fake out -> U turn combo (about as close as you can get to 'free' damage)and heal any damage he took using regenerator. If slowbro doesn't end up being my last living pokemon, it's almost always mienshao when he's on the team. At which point out come the #YOLO High Jump Kicks which have lost me about as many games as they've won me. Not sure what other speedy pokes give me the same constant damage and end game power as mienshao, but I am open to suggestions.
I would like to give you guys a list of other pokemon I've been considering, but I swear I've looked at literally everything with less than 100 speed at some point. Scizor, Conkeldurr and Eelektross I think are probably three that I have switched in the most. Though thanks to me having very little knowledge of the game, we might as well assume I haven't looked at anything.
Anyway, the first thing that jumps out about this team is how heavily invested in offense it is. I feel I'm getting the most out of trick room this way, but I can also understand that may not be the best approach to the meta, particularly when I'm running a team that doesn't conform to the meta anyway. The team feels more 'complete' than It has done in the past, but I'm still not 100% happy with it, and to be honest I'm not sure why. I don't know if it's because I feel I'm to heavily invested on the special side, or if I'm just plain bored of my 3 core trick-roomers.
I really do appreciate any advice or suggestions you guys can give me. I'm really enjoying playing with trick room and I would like to explore it's possibilities a lot further.
Cheers guys, looking forward to the replies.
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