over 7000 hours in photoshop
Hey guys. I've been doing Pokemon competitively for ages now, and while I'm more partial to gimmick strategies like baton pass and trick room, I decided that I would attempt to make a non-gimmick balanced team for ranked wifi 3v3 games. However I somehow still managed to fail that goal since 4 of my 6 pokemon have quadruple weaknesses. Lol.
At first, I tried using a rain dance team I had built for 6v6 battles, which worked very well on showdown, but I quickly discovered that big team strategies like rain dance are trickier to get up and running unless you really tone them down. Not only that, but since you have to pick 3 and leave 3 behind, it seems like team comps that feature lots of generally usable pokemon in most situations are favored. So I basically just made a team from scratch. For season 2, I'm currently 8-3 for wins and losses, so my team is good, but it can definitely be improved imo. I experimented a lot with some UU (Like Vivillon) and even some RU/NU pokemon (like Sawk -_-), and even some trick room experiments with mega-Ampharos, but this seems to be the team that I have been having the most consistent success and synergy with.
If you want to recommend me new pokemon for the team, please try to recommend things that can be hatched in Kalos (blue hexagon). I'm not giving serious thought to using these guys in any tournaments, especially not since 3v3 isn't officially supported, but I'd rather use blue hexagon pokemon that not. Still, feel free to recommend anything you want and think I should use. It's just a preference.
Greninja @ Focus Sash
Ability: Protean
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 SAtk / 4 HP
Timid Nature
- Hydro Pump
- Grass Knot
- Ice Beam
- Dark Pulse
Greninja's great, but who doesn't know this already? He has enough speed and power to at least 2HKO most things that try to fight him, bar priority or weather effects. Hydro pump is needed to get certain kills that surf wouldn't be able to get. It can be a gamble, but it's a gamble in my favor (85%). Sometimes I'll use him as a lead, sometimes not. It mostly depends what they're running, but I use Greninja quite often. If they have fake out I can switch to gengar. I'll sometimes bring him in later if I see they have typically non-lead pokemon that are vulnerable to Greninja (Gliscor, Quagsire, Swampert, Gyarados, Garchomp, and Landorus, to name a few that come to mind)
Quagsire @ Leftovers
Ability: Unaware
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SDef
Impish Nature
- Toxic
- Recover
- Swagger
- Earthquake
Quagsire is MY BRO. I can't even tell you how many times he's saved my ass in showdown and free battles. There's lots of great things about running Quag on a team like mine. For one, I can switch him into obvious electric attacks for free that are so often aimed at Gyarados and to a lesser extent Greninja (Looking at you, Rotom-W). He also stops surprise sweepers dead in the water due to unaware, especially physical Aegislash, who will kill himself through swagger confusion before he manages to come close to killing Quagsire. Swagger is great on Quagsire, because since he has unaware, he doesn't have to worry about the opponent getting an attack boost; it doesn't matter. Enough swaggers on a single pokemon can make them OHKO themselves sometimes, its pretty funny. Earthquake is there to break substitutes, and hit some steel/poison type pokemon for SE damage.
Basically, his job is to toxic-stall anything physical that my team can't deal with. Except poison and steel types.
He does have a fair number of counters though. For one, ANYTHING WITH GRASS. I've gotten pretty good at predicting when grass attacks are coming, but they still surprise me sometimes, like last night where I got swept by a Eelektross that knew giga drain. Strong special sweepers are a problem too, but the rest of the team can cover that. REALLY strong physical sweepers such as choice band Talonflame also give Quagsire a hard time. Most pokemon that can 2HKO Quagsire after leftovers recovery are usually enough to beat him, since he needs that free turn to get toxic in. Certain poison and steel types are no good for him either, since he can't toxic stall them. Also, Freeze-dry is actually extremely deadly vs Quagsire, since it goes from being a neutral damage attack to being a X4 SE attack, so you have to be aware of that. Getting hit by toxic from the enemy is manageable with switches and recover, but if he's the last pokemon I have he's screwed unless they die first. He also fails against rest-talkers. It sounds like he gets countered by loads of things, but most of these problems aren't seen too often, luckily.
Dragonite @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Multiscale
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 HP / 4 SDef
Jolly Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Dragon Claw
- Earthquake
- Roost
Weakness policy Dragonite might be obvious to more experienced players, but it's still really good in my experience. I usually bring Dragonite along if the opponent has multiple dragon or ice type pokemon. If I'm expecting to be hit by a SE attack and I'm at full HP, I'll usually dragon dance, unless I think they have a scarf. DD along with WP brings his atk up to +3 in a single turn. SE attacks almost never do more than half HP in damage due to multiscale being amazing at tanking attacks. If I can't roost back to full, I'll attack and almost always kill the target. If I can roost back to full, I'll do that usually, and take even less damage from certain SE attacks like rock-type moves. Dragonite also tanks grass/electric/fire attacks that are aimed at the rest of my party very well. Overall he's a very solid and reliable pokemon.
Dragon/Ground is pretty good coverage for two moves, but it comes with some obvious downsides. For one, Togekiss is completely immune to both, so I usually won't even use Dragonite if they have a Togekiss in their party. Burn, poison, infestation, and residual weather damage is also no bueno for Dragonite since it makes it trickier to abuse multiscale. Multi-hit SE moves, mainly from Cloyster and mega-Heracross, also kill Dragonite pretty quickly.
Gyarados @ Life Orb
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk
Jolly Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Waterfall
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge
I was a little on the fence about non-mega Gyarados for a while, but honestly he's been a great addition to my team thus far. Gyarados actually has a fair amount of special defense even without investment, so I'll use him to tank certain things that something like Quagsire and Scizor wouldn't be able to. He can takes lots of not very effective physical attacks as well. He's the closest thing I have to a Talonflame check, although he can still lose to the bird if he has less than 100% HP. I can also swap him out for Quagsire if I feel like an electric attack is coming most of the time. Or even better, I can kill certain electric types after a single DD and an earthquake. Stone edge is for much needed coverage against flying-types, since the only SE move I have against them so far is ice beam on Greninja. Intimidate is good for softening strong physical sweepers.
Scizor @ Assault Vest
Ability: Technician
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def
Adamant Nature
- Bullet Punch
- U-turn
- Pursuit
- Aerial Ace
I'll be honest, I'm not completely sold on this set. It seems to be the one pokemon on my team I never seem to use/need. I think part of the problem is that fire-type moves are so common on specially offensive pokemon that Scizor just can't tank them. I'm also running Kalos Scizor, so no superpower or bug bite :(. I chose to run Aerial Ace instead since it gives me something to fight mega-Venusaur with, an otherwise huge annoyance. At the very least, Scizor is great at tanking grass attacks aimed at Quagsire. I also like how I actually have a priority move with Scizor, and a fairly good one at that.
I tried running physical Assault Vest Goodra with sap sipper as a compliment to Quagsire for a while, but I just almost never ended up using it, and it typically a burden to my team unless it managed to eat a grass-type attack. I'm thinking maybe I should replace it with something like, I don't know, maybe Assault vest Weezing. That would solve the problem of my team not having electric/fire type moves, and Greninja could serve as a switch-in for psychic attacks. Assault vest Eelektross might also be good, but I need to be careful not to bring too many water-types due to freeze-dry.
But who knows, maybe I'm just using him wrong. All I know is that I'd feel a lot better with a dedicated special defense tank with at least a fire-type move because mega-Scizor just walks all over me without it.
Gengar @ Gengarite
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 SAtk / 252 Spd / 4 Def
Timid Nature
- Sludge Bomb
- Shadow Ball
- Focus Blast
- Substitute
Now I know what you're thinking, "Gengarite is banned", and I'd just like to point out that this is a team I've built for wifi. Gengarite honestly isn't even all that necessary on mine, I just like the stat boosts it gives him more than someone like mega-Gyarados or Scizor. Just pretend he swapped his megastone for Gyarados' life orb if it bothers you.
I really like Gengar for a couple of reasons. First off, being a poison-type pokemon, he does fantastic damage against most fairies, which is something my team desperately needs. Focus blast isn't totally reliable, but it's still my best way of killing problem steel-type pokemon that Quagsire can't just stall out. His moveset also covers lots of things that Greninja doesn't, and vice versa, so I can make educated guesses about which one of them I'll be using. Being a levitate ghost, I can switch him into fighting attacks aimed at Greninja, as well as any earthquakes that might be coming.
Another thing I like is that I needed someone on my team who could get around status problems, and fast substitute seems like a good way to get around these threats. He's the only real check I have to sleep-leads such as Smeargle, Vivillon, Venusaur, and Breloom. Toxic has no effect. Pranksters still manage to hit him sadly, which doesn't matter too much for burn at least. He also can't switch into incoming status, he needs a turn to bring up substitute. Still, being forced to take two attacks from Gengar after substitute breaks really hurts anything without special defense investment.
So yeah, I think that's everything. There isn't really too much that counters my entire team that I haven't at least talked about a little bit, at least nothing I can think of right now. I'll be playtesting this on showdown without Gengarite and I'll update if anything really stands out.
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