Hi everyone, this is my third RMT and if you're starting to know me by now you should have guessed it carries all sorts of weird custom sets. It's peaked number 7 on the ladder with 1289 though I think it's reached the 1300's before I stopped and restarted playing with it (with the alt testing jesus). I'm pretty happy to have reached such ranking with pokemon who have probably never been so high up the ladder. I'll skip the history of the team because it was made after testing multiple underrated pokemon and took a huge amount of time to make (there's even some later versions that didn't work quite as well as this one).
Although the team was made around kadabra, it really wouldn't have gone far without it's defensive core and other offensive presence. The title came to me when looking at the team and realizing everything but miltank was either bulky or extremely frail and powerful. This will probably be my last RMT for a while since I'm going to be very busy if not completely absent IRL until the end of summer so I'll have to catch up on BW2 metagame afterwards.
The Strategy: I usually look at the opponent's team in team preview, identify what is dangerous to my team, and cripple it with kadabra + pikachu if they can't counter him on their own (kadabra usually can). I then proceed to put something to sleep and slowly bring down the opponent with my offensive walls.
So, let's move on with the team:
The Walls
Relicanth (M) @quick claw
Ability: Rock Head
EV's: 116 Hp, 252 Att, 132 Def, 8 Spe,
Nature: Adamant
-Stealth Rock
-Head Smash
-Earthquake
-Waterfall
Relicanth was one of the most common pokemon in the thousands of versions this team has went through. I love so many things about him: He sets up the rocks, has very decent bulk to counter birds, hits like a freaking truck with rock head STAB head smash, has very good coverage and his name is not golem or regirock. The EV spread is simple: Max attack, random physical bulk investments because I’m too lazy too calculate the maximizing combination and 8 speed to outspeed other 55's. Relicanth is a secondary physical wall that counters many things vileplume doesn't and can also try countering special fire attacks sent to Regice with a 4X resist (though coverage moves will usually make it impossible). Relicanth is sometimes used as a lead.
Quick claw is what most players will tell me to change of the set. I want to defend quick claw's honour however as I believe it's a very underestimated item. First off, unlike in previous genereations quick claw has not 10 but 20% chance of activating which is pretty good. Although it's really praying for hax, so is using scald over surf. The item also fits perfectly with relicanth since he tends to either completely wall a poke or be prone to OHKO making leftys not that useful (quick claw can even be more useful against stallers). Finally, the quick claw combined with Relicanth's deadly head smash can cause game changing surprises and the funniest reactions of the opponent. Note that I never rely on the item, it would be ridiculous.
Vileplume (F) @ black sludge
Ability: Effect Spore
EV's 252 Hp, 208 Def, 40 Sp.A, 8 Spe
Nature: Bold
-Giga Drain
-Sludge Bomb
-Sleep powder
-Aromatherapy
Probably the second most important pokemon of the team, I'm just always switching out to vileplume to take so many physical hits. Sleep powder is also very useful to cripple one pokemon of the opposing team to reduce the opponent's synergy. Dual Stab has decent coverage and giga drain helps vileplume heal up while attacking. She also supports the team with aromatherapy which can wake up Regice if he had to switch out during sleep or get rid of paralyze on kadabra when I mispredict SR and switch on T wave while facing regirock.
EV's are set like on the normal vileplume set to tank physical hits, with a little variation on speed for the same reason as relicanth. Black sludge brings minor recovery. I often lead with vileplume for he checks many SR leads and many anti-relicanth leads and can put something to sleep at the very beginning
Regice @ leftovers
Ability: Clear Body
EV's: 248 HP, 252 Sp,A, 8 Spe
Nature: Modest
-Ice beam
-Thunderbolt
-Rest
-Sleep Talk
Regice is my special wall (you don't say!). Although ice is seen as a terrible defensive typing, Most non-fire super effective moves will come from a physical attacker anyway. I see him like the noob version of cryogonal who carry's better speed, ability and has access to rapid spin and recover. I still chose Regice over him because of this guy's crazy natural special bulk. This same bulk let's me invest the usual special wall Sp.D EV's in Sp.A which combined with regice's awesome dual coverage makes him probably the most offensive special wall in the tier. RestTalk isn't the best form of recovery but having a vileplume cleric makes it slightly more reliable.
8 Spe once again is to outspeed other 50's. Rapid spin didn't seem too useful to the team with kadabra ignoring hazards, pika dying to anything anyway, no other weakness to SR and vileplume absorbing T spikes. Plus cryogonal struggles to be offensive and defensive at the same time.
The Cow
Miltank (F) @Life Orb
Ability: Sap Sipper
EV's: 4Hp, 252 Att, 252 Spe
Nature: Jolly
-Double-Edge
-Earthquake
-Punishment
-Milk drink
Miltank might not be original in NU but this set is far form being the most common one. When looking at the title and team preview it seems logic miltank would be one of the walls of the team but no! Miltank is in fact an awesome physical attacker thanks to it's great speed and ability sap sipper which is so rare it get's activated in more than 1 game out of 2. I first chose miltank because I often try to have a sleep absorber in every team for sleep is so damn common down in NU, it can also come in on grass attacks dedicated to relicanth. Looking back at the team I found out regice could probably do the job making miltank a rather outclassed physical attacker with a useless niche on paper. However miltank has done wonderfully in this team, it's one of the best switch outs to tangela, amoonguss and vileplume and can counter all of them easily making tangela much easier to deal with even with regenerator. It's also a great physical attacker in general with good coverage, a powerful stab even with a poor 80 attack stat, and reliable recovery on decent bulk for an offensive pokemon (very useful with the huge recoil she gets from LO double-edge). Punishment also hits Musharna very hard after several calm minds. Miltank is still one of the pokémon (with pikachu) I would accept to replace with something like Scarfed rapidash to tank mags fireblast for Regice, counter trick and get rid of offensive cryogonal that threatens me so badly (this would leave me weaker to SR and to other threats however).
Pikachu (M) @ Light Ball
Ability: Static
EV's: 252Att, 4Sp.A, 252 Spe
Nature: Hasty
-Extreemspeed
-Wild Charge
-Brick Break
-Volt Switch
I think many people thought of using extreemspeed pikachu when it became available but then turned back realizing it didn't hit that hard anyway. AgentDell told me to try it and although it took me a while before doing so, I liked him enough to keep him in the team. He's still one of the weakest pokemon of the team and could possibly be changed though I really like the powerful priority that will often finish kadabra's work. Pikachu also fills so many roles acting simultaneously as a revenge killer, mini wallbreaker, volt switcher and mini mixed attacker.
Unfortunately nore lightingrod or volt tackle is available with extreemspeed but static and wild charges aren’t that bad either and it's dangerous to play on immunity with the frailest pokémon competitively usable. He might seem outclassed by CB linoone but I use pikachu in a very active role and not being choiced coupled with a terribly powerful wild strike is much more useful than a late game finisher to this team. Volt Switch gives momentum and a form of special attack and brick break adds coverage though I wonder if I should change it for grass knot, help me out with you're rates.
Kadabra (M) @ focus sash
Ability: Magic Guard
EV's : 4Hp, 252 Sp.A, 252 Spe
Nature: Timid
-Psychic
-Shadow Ball
-Hp Fighting
-Encore
Here it is, the ultimate spoon Jedi: Kadabra. I feel kadabra is one of the most underestimated pokemon in the whole tier. This team wouldn't have had half the sucess it has had whithout him. I posted this set in the project neverused forum and it's the pokemon around which I have built every version of this team. Pretty traditional set in terms of coverage but with encore instead of CM or sub. Encore combined with magic guard means kadabra can come in on thousands of non-damaging moves, encore them and get a free attack from his powerful special attack. Magic guard + focus sash is the second thing that makes kadabra so incredible. Since he takes no damage from hazards, kadabra always keeps his sash intact until he gets an attack that is likely to bring him to 1 Hp. This means Kadabra nearly always gets 2 attacks to kill nearly every major threat that could take out an important part of my team.
Here are some examples of nasty surprises encore can create (and I've become pretty good to predict when to switch him in): trick stealth rockers that think they can cripple me after taking a hit, encore toxic or WoW from all sorts of things especially his own counters (like misdreavus) leaving the opponent with terrible switch-ins to take the psychic, lock musharna in calm mind to then punish it with miltank or reverse the free turn situation against ennemies getting free subs on the switch (as long as it's not serperior who is handled by miltank). Those are just a few examples, with a bit of imagination this guy can cause massive damage to any team without skuntank or max speed cryogonal (damn Hp fighting breaking the speed tie).
Threats:
There is a good amount of threats to this team but I can get passed many of them by sacrifying kadabra. LO Magmortar is a good example for it breaks my three walls. Of those that can't be handled by kadabra, skuntank and cryogonal are the worst. Skuntank can be handled by the 2 quakers but offensive cryogonal is a rough job (he loses the pp stall war with regice however). Choiced trick is also annoying but if predicted properly, kadabra can try and take advantage of it or encore the trick for some high level trolling. I lack very high speed, carrying only one priority move and a quick claw. This team also requires a whole lot of prediction and I will often lose because of original plays from the opponent (or just me being stupid). Finaly I tend to abuse the fact my sets are usualy original enough to be very hard to predcit, so once the opponent knows the team it's hard to trick him (making an RMT might seem stupid but next time I'll be playing, BW2 will be out and this won't be worth much anymore).
Seeing as I am starting a new job, I won't be around much, so we won't really be able to battle as often as before. So until next time, good luck and peace be with you! 