Intro:
I'm fairly new to competitive Pokemon. I've been playing the games since elementary school, but never got serious about a children's game until this generation. I've tried alot of different teams, but none have met with as much success as this one; none by far.
The Development:
*Note: I wont be posting movesets for the development stages
IN DEPTH:
Durant (F) @ Focus Sash
Trait: Truant
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SDef
Impish Nature (+Def, -SAtk)
- Entrainment
- Sandstorm
- Thunder Wave
- Iron Head
My Entrainment-er. Gives my opponents lead Truant, then lets Dugtrio trap them and set up. Focus Sash makes sure it works. Now, some of you may be thinking that most opponents would simply switch out once they had Truant. They do not, everyone seems to think this is some kind of gimmick they can just power through, or even take it as an opprotunity to set up walls or hazards. These are all mistakes.
TWave and Sandstorm is for late game if something hasn't gone exactly as planned and I need to get things rolling in a positive direction. Iron Head is just so I dont get caught with a Pokemon that cant attack, a mistake I"ve made on pretty much all of my previous teams.
Dugtrio (M) @ Focus Sash
Trait: Arena Trap
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Protect
- Earthquake
- Hone Claws
- Stone Edge
The Beast. Dugtrio gets a free switch in once the opponent is Truant then Protects/Hone Claws to +6ATK, then kills everything. He has some minor issues with Gliscor, however Focus Sash ensures it gets the 2Hits in it needs to kill it with Stone Edge. It's not abnormal for this guy to take out the majority of the other team.
Tyranitar (F) @ Leftovers
Trait: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SDef
Impish Nature (+Def, -SAtk)
- Earthquake
- Aqua Tail
- Curse
- Crunch
Sand might seem a tad unnedded, however the extra damage is great. Just great.
The defensive set is due to TTar being taken out easily by the copious amounts of Pokemon using moves like Mach Punch. Curse is for some light boosting in case TTar gets a chance to take something out. Aqua Tail is on there for fire types carrying balloons.
Quagsire (M) @ Leftovers
Trait: Unaware
EVs: 252 HP / 80 Def / 176 SDef
Calm Nature (+SDef, -Atk)
- Stockpile
- Ice Beam
- Recover
- Scald
Helps out Dugtrio with those jerk wads who try to boost defenses while I'm getting my attack up. Stockpile and Recover makes it super bulky, and Ice Beam and Scald being the obvious damaging moves. Again, compliments Dugtrio very nicely.
Skarmory (F) @ Leftovers
Trait: Sturdy
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SDef
Careful Nature (+SDef, -SAtk)
- Roost
- Stealth Rock
- Spikes
- Whirlwind
This Pokemon has two main purposes. Set up hazards to lighten the load on Donphan and Dugtrio, and Whirlwind Curse Ferrothorn. Screw that guy.
This Sturdy plus high defenses helps it switch in when it needs to, and Roost keeps it kickin'.
Donphan (F) @ Choice Band
Trait: Sturdy
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Thunder Fang
- Ice Shard
- Rapid Spin
- Superpower
I <3 Donphan. Awesome revenge killer, great for late game clean-up. Plus, has type coverage I couldn't get with any other Pokemon sporting Rapid Spin AND priority. Upped the defense in lieu of speed due to it not being worth it in my mind, plus, he's using Ice Shard %0% of the time, so the need for speed hardly ever arises. Plus, with Sturdy he's able to get that attack in while still sporting Choice Band. Again, this Pokemon is mostly meant to help Dugtrio, cleaning up anything that's left after the sweep, plus being able to hold his own if Dugtrio's performance left something to be desired.
THREATS:
Curse Ferrothorn. Gotta Whirlwind it, or boost Quagsire enough to get a couple Scalds off. Doesn't usually cuase too much trouble unless it comes out late game at full health. Also, Breloom lead with Spore can ruin my fun, but doesn't can't often take out Durant, either due to me switching out or Durant waking up. Other then that, I haven't ran into too many issues during my playtesting.
Anyways, thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed it. If it seemed a bit brief at any point it's because I got logged out the first time I finished and had to rewrite most of this (</3). Please rate, and have a super day. :D
I'm fairly new to competitive Pokemon. I've been playing the games since elementary school, but never got serious about a children's game until this generation. I've tried alot of different teams, but none have met with as much success as this one; none by far.
The Development:
*Note: I wont be posting movesets for the development stages
I was getting really tired of getting messed-up by weather teams (specifically rain teams on the PBC server), so I decided I wanted a team that could wreck the weather inducers, then allow me to get my own weather up. After somewhat (read: completely) arbitrarily choosing Sand, I went ahead building a pretty lackluster, run-of-the-mill sand team with Mew starter for trying to hit Ninetales, TTar... etc.
The idea was that Mew would kill whatever weather lead the other guy had, then I'd set up sand and cross my fingers. This rarely (see: Never) worked. This team was far too specific in its scope, and even then was awful at what it was supposed to do.
I abandoned the idea for a week or so, until I battled against someone on the Italian language PO server. He had a Durant against one of my other teams, using, what I thought was, a pretty gimmicky plan of using Entrainment to give my Pokemon the Truant ability (Truant: every other turn your Pokemon does nothing). This caused lots of switches, but nothing too serious.
After that battle it occured to me that if I could Mean Look (or some equivalent) a Pokemon with Truancy, it'd be like free-hits! Awesome!
I began looking for one of my teams that I could shoe-horn this into. The above one is what I decided on, based on Durant being sympatico with sand. I gave the heave-hoe to Mew and introduced added Durant. The plan being to use Dugtrio's Arena Trap to trap a troublesome Pokemon, give it Focus Sash, and hope it could be 3HKOd.
This was marginally better then before. However initial playtesting still yielded a limp-wristed performance.
It wasn't until, playing a wifi battle, I used Durant as the lead in a clever (reference: accidental) ploy to preserve my weather machine for later, less haphazard use.
Also, after tweaking my team for Durant lead, got rid of two of Dugtrio's attacks for Protect and Hone Claws (probably the first legitimately clever thing I did on my own). This allowed Durant to make the other guys lead Truant, then get a free switch-in for Dugtrio, Protect, Hone Claws... Until Dugtrio had +6Atk, then demolish the other team.
It was at this point that this team started to become useful/ ragequit inducing. Through playtesting the team began to take it's current shape.
Durant (lead), Dugtrio, Tyranitar. These three are really the backbone of the team. As explained before, the Truant+Arena Trap+Boost combo can be devastating.
However, I was having an issue with Pokemon sometimes boosting their defence while I setup Dugtrio. It was at this point that Unaware Quagsire was introduced.
The next improvement came when I recalled how well hazards had worked for my last team. Previously I had used Forretress, but found it a bit tame. The next obvious choice for a hazards guy was Skarmory. Plus, Skarm had access to Whirlwind, dealing wtih my biggest issue: Lead, Curse, Ferrothorn.
Lastly, I found I was lacking a good revenge killer, plus I had some gapping holes in my type coverage. This is when Donphan came in. Initially, I was going to get rid of him as he didn't seem to do enough damage. However, with a Choice Band he soon became an invaluable member and a ballin' revenge killer with Ice Shard.
The idea was that Mew would kill whatever weather lead the other guy had, then I'd set up sand and cross my fingers. This rarely (see: Never) worked. This team was far too specific in its scope, and even then was awful at what it was supposed to do.
I abandoned the idea for a week or so, until I battled against someone on the Italian language PO server. He had a Durant against one of my other teams, using, what I thought was, a pretty gimmicky plan of using Entrainment to give my Pokemon the Truant ability (Truant: every other turn your Pokemon does nothing). This caused lots of switches, but nothing too serious.
After that battle it occured to me that if I could Mean Look (or some equivalent) a Pokemon with Truancy, it'd be like free-hits! Awesome!
I began looking for one of my teams that I could shoe-horn this into. The above one is what I decided on, based on Durant being sympatico with sand. I gave the heave-hoe to Mew and introduced added Durant. The plan being to use Dugtrio's Arena Trap to trap a troublesome Pokemon, give it Focus Sash, and hope it could be 3HKOd.
This was marginally better then before. However initial playtesting still yielded a limp-wristed performance.
It wasn't until, playing a wifi battle, I used Durant as the lead in a clever (reference: accidental) ploy to preserve my weather machine for later, less haphazard use.
Also, after tweaking my team for Durant lead, got rid of two of Dugtrio's attacks for Protect and Hone Claws (probably the first legitimately clever thing I did on my own). This allowed Durant to make the other guys lead Truant, then get a free switch-in for Dugtrio, Protect, Hone Claws... Until Dugtrio had +6Atk, then demolish the other team.
It was at this point that this team started to become useful/ ragequit inducing. Through playtesting the team began to take it's current shape.
Durant (lead), Dugtrio, Tyranitar. These three are really the backbone of the team. As explained before, the Truant+Arena Trap+Boost combo can be devastating.
However, I was having an issue with Pokemon sometimes boosting their defence while I setup Dugtrio. It was at this point that Unaware Quagsire was introduced.
The next improvement came when I recalled how well hazards had worked for my last team. Previously I had used Forretress, but found it a bit tame. The next obvious choice for a hazards guy was Skarmory. Plus, Skarm had access to Whirlwind, dealing wtih my biggest issue: Lead, Curse, Ferrothorn.
Lastly, I found I was lacking a good revenge killer, plus I had some gapping holes in my type coverage. This is when Donphan came in. Initially, I was going to get rid of him as he didn't seem to do enough damage. However, with a Choice Band he soon became an invaluable member and a ballin' revenge killer with Ice Shard.
Durant (F) @ Focus Sash
Trait: Truant
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SDef
Impish Nature (+Def, -SAtk)
- Entrainment
- Sandstorm
- Thunder Wave
- Iron Head
My Entrainment-er. Gives my opponents lead Truant, then lets Dugtrio trap them and set up. Focus Sash makes sure it works. Now, some of you may be thinking that most opponents would simply switch out once they had Truant. They do not, everyone seems to think this is some kind of gimmick they can just power through, or even take it as an opprotunity to set up walls or hazards. These are all mistakes.
TWave and Sandstorm is for late game if something hasn't gone exactly as planned and I need to get things rolling in a positive direction. Iron Head is just so I dont get caught with a Pokemon that cant attack, a mistake I"ve made on pretty much all of my previous teams.
Dugtrio (M) @ Focus Sash
Trait: Arena Trap
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Protect
- Earthquake
- Hone Claws
- Stone Edge
The Beast. Dugtrio gets a free switch in once the opponent is Truant then Protects/Hone Claws to +6ATK, then kills everything. He has some minor issues with Gliscor, however Focus Sash ensures it gets the 2Hits in it needs to kill it with Stone Edge. It's not abnormal for this guy to take out the majority of the other team.
Tyranitar (F) @ Leftovers
Trait: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SDef
Impish Nature (+Def, -SAtk)
- Earthquake
- Aqua Tail
- Curse
- Crunch
Sand might seem a tad unnedded, however the extra damage is great. Just great.
The defensive set is due to TTar being taken out easily by the copious amounts of Pokemon using moves like Mach Punch. Curse is for some light boosting in case TTar gets a chance to take something out. Aqua Tail is on there for fire types carrying balloons.
Quagsire (M) @ Leftovers
Trait: Unaware
EVs: 252 HP / 80 Def / 176 SDef
Calm Nature (+SDef, -Atk)
- Stockpile
- Ice Beam
- Recover
- Scald
Helps out Dugtrio with those jerk wads who try to boost defenses while I'm getting my attack up. Stockpile and Recover makes it super bulky, and Ice Beam and Scald being the obvious damaging moves. Again, compliments Dugtrio very nicely.
Skarmory (F) @ Leftovers
Trait: Sturdy
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SDef
Careful Nature (+SDef, -SAtk)
- Roost
- Stealth Rock
- Spikes
- Whirlwind
This Pokemon has two main purposes. Set up hazards to lighten the load on Donphan and Dugtrio, and Whirlwind Curse Ferrothorn. Screw that guy.
This Sturdy plus high defenses helps it switch in when it needs to, and Roost keeps it kickin'.
Donphan (F) @ Choice Band
Trait: Sturdy
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Thunder Fang
- Ice Shard
- Rapid Spin
- Superpower
I <3 Donphan. Awesome revenge killer, great for late game clean-up. Plus, has type coverage I couldn't get with any other Pokemon sporting Rapid Spin AND priority. Upped the defense in lieu of speed due to it not being worth it in my mind, plus, he's using Ice Shard %0% of the time, so the need for speed hardly ever arises. Plus, with Sturdy he's able to get that attack in while still sporting Choice Band. Again, this Pokemon is mostly meant to help Dugtrio, cleaning up anything that's left after the sweep, plus being able to hold his own if Dugtrio's performance left something to be desired.
Curse Ferrothorn. Gotta Whirlwind it, or boost Quagsire enough to get a couple Scalds off. Doesn't usually cuase too much trouble unless it comes out late game at full health. Also, Breloom lead with Spore can ruin my fun, but doesn't can't often take out Durant, either due to me switching out or Durant waking up. Other then that, I haven't ran into too many issues during my playtesting.
Anyways, thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed it. If it seemed a bit brief at any point it's because I got logged out the first time I finished and had to rewrite most of this (</3). Please rate, and have a super day. :D
