You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar (OU RMT)

Omega Phoenix

Well this is my first RMT, so id love any comments criticism. I've been around on shoddy for a while under my old alias kahuna175, but only recently signed up for smogon. This team was inspired from the first issue of the smog, suggesting a tyranitar that could be used to lure out threats to a sd lucario sweep. So the aim of the team is to enable a lucario sweep using the surprise factor of tyranitars strange set, as well as gyarados and scizor to weaken physical walls. This teams has done ok, but im stuck at around the 1520 CRE mark, and cant seem to take it any further. So i'd like to know, is it the team? Or me? haha

EDIT: Swapped Azelf lead, with a trick variant, and brought in special t-tar.

EVERY MEMBER IS REPLACEABLE IF YOU GIVE ME A GOOD ENOUGH REASON WHY


The team at a glance:

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Now the team in detail:


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Azelf @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 38 Atk/220 Spd/252 SAtk
Naive nature (+Spd, -SDef)
- Stealth Rock
- Psychic
- Trick
- U-turn


This Azelf isn't really too different from my old one, ive changed out grass knot and flamethrower for u-turn and trick. Trick ive found helps me greatly with my bulky water problem, as i found suicune and kingdra to be my biggest threats, as i couldnt really stop them from setting up. Also helps with stall teams. U-turn is to scout switches, find out what sets a lead is running, and generally just to keep up the tempo.

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Rotom-H @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP/56 Def/200 SDef
Calm nature (+SDef, -Atk)
- Discharge
- Will-o-wisp
- Rest
- Sleep Talk

I decided that with a lot of my team more capable of taking physical hits, i wanted a specially bulky rotom. The EV's are from the Rotom-C rest talk analysis, im not really sure what they are designed to withstand, but it has been working pretty well. After a WOW, rotoms not taking much damage from either side of the spectrum and is really the MVP of my team. Spreads status around which aids tyranitars job of removing counters, and really stops steels dead in their tracks. My problem is i feel i rely on rotom do too much, as it my first switch in to a lot of threats and if it goes down early, i normally find myself on the losing end of the battle.

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Tyranitar @ Leftovers
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 HP/82 Def/176 SAtk
Modest nature (+SAtk, -Atk)
- Substitute
- Dark Pulse
- Flamethrower
- Ice Beam

Specially attacking tyranitar. Acts in a similar way to my old tyranitar, aiming to lure out lucarios counters and hit them with the super effective move of choice. Dark Pulse is in for Crunch, so i dont have to split evs, and allows me to transfer extra evs into the defences. Substitute to ease prediction. This set doesnt function that differently to my old set, but is able to handle scizor better, at the expense of heatran coverage. As now ive lost earthquake on this set, im finding heatran to be a bit more of a problem. Gyarados is still my first switch in, but as i say below, gyara cant take repeated hits with no form of recovery, especially with sr everywhere.

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Scizor @ Choice Band
Ability: Technician
EVs: 252 HP/252 Atk/4 Def
Adamant nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Bullet Punch
- U-turn
- Superpower
- Pursuit

Scizor. This guy has become standard in a lot of OU teams for a reason. He acts as my revenge killer to any stat up sweeper. Keeps Salamence and Latias at bay, and generally just saves me from a lot of threats that would otherwise runaway with the game. U-turn is used to ease prediction, as my team is built around switching in resistances, giving me a free turn is a huge advantage. It will take a great lot of convincing for me to remove this guy from my team.

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Gyarados @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 156 HP/108 Atk/60 Def/184 Spd
Adamant nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Dragon Dance
- Waterfall
- Stone Edge
- Taunt

BulkyGyara with a little twist. 184 speed so after a DD it can outspeed positive base 115s, which is invaluable for those gengars that try to switch in. It really is used as a check, so that rotom doesnt have to wall as much. Normally is my first switch into heatran and lucario, and stops those annoying baton passers with taunt. Unfortunately, with tyranitar on the team, leftovers gets cancelled out, so he has no reliable form of recovery, so i see gyarados as my most replaceable member. I am open for any suggestions here.

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Lucario @ Life Orb
Ability: Steadfast
EVs: 4 HP/252 Atk/252 Spd
Adamant nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Swords Dance
- Close Combat
- Crunch
- Extremespeed

As we all know, Lucario is one of the best late game sweepers there is. We all know how it works and this is the standard set so im not going to explain it. Crunch is because i find ghosts harder to take down and i hate stone edges accuracy. Steadfast is so that annoying hax rachi ends up benefitting me, as lucarios only let down is its slightly low speed. I normally try to keep this guy hidden until late game, as i find that makes opponents less worried about switching in their counters to my other threats.

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Threats:
Major threats that ive found so far:

Bulky waters ive found to be my biggest problem, especially Suicune and Kingdra as they can set up on most of my team. Generally i try and paralyze with Rotom, and use Azelf to finish it off when rotom falls. Now with trickZelf not as bigger problem. Still sucks if azelf goes down early.

Breloom can be annoying, generally let Rotom take the sleep and then use Scizor to finish.

MixMence can get a quick kill, but is a problem for everyones team so i dont know what to do there. Scizor with the revenge kill.

RestTalk Machamp, i really have no answer for it if Azelf falls early.

SubZapdos, i generally go to Tyranitar, but pressure makes this a hard fight

NEW: Heatran. With a lack of a ground move, this guy is proving to be quite the problem.

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These were my old team members:


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Azelf @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 4 Def/252 Spd/252 SAtk
Modest nature (+SAtk, -Atk)
- Stealth Rock
- Psychic
- Flamethrower
- Grass Knot


Scarf Azelf is a very unexpected lead these days, as everyone expects the common taunt, sash set. This set always gets rocks down or a quick ko. Originally i had the standard set as my lead, but i decided to change to the scarfer, as i realised i needed a fast revenge killer and i couldnt see a place for it on my team. Now ive fallen in love with it. It shuts down every scarf lead, which is particulary helpful against those annoying breloom, roserade sleep leads. I find each member of my team needs to be ready to switch in, as i commonly play on resistances as i have no designated walls. Basically when using this azelf i either lay rocks and switch to the appropriate counter, or i attack for the ko.


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Tyranitar @ Expert Belt
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 184 HP/36 Atk/108 Def/28 Spd/152 SAtk
Relaxed nature (+Def, -Spd)
- Crunch
- Fire Blast
- Ice Beam
- Earthquake

This guy is the master of surprise. Expert Belt is there to feign a choice item, and a lot of people suddenly find their Skarmory, Gliscor, or Salamence taken down by a surprise super effective Fire Blast or Ice Beam respectively. I wish i could credit for this because it is genius, and the EV spread always this tar to survive a lot of hits and be able to OHKO back with the appropriate move of choice. By the time people realise what this Tyranitar is, it has generally taken out two or three pokemon, leaving the door wide open for the rest of mine to sweep. The EV's give tyranitar stats of 387 HP / 313 Atk / 311 Def / 264 SpA / 236 SpD / 148 Spe. The HP and Defense allow Tyranitar to always survive an Adamant Life Orb Earthquake from Gliscor after Stealth Rock, and the Special Attack allows me to OHKO Gliscor. The Speed EVs allows me to always outrun 4 Speed EVs Machamp and Blissey. The remaining EVs are placed into Attack for good measure. The problem with this guy is switching him in. Generally i have to come in on something that is zero threat to tyranitar, or after something has fainted, as any prior damage to him greatly reduces his effectiveness.

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Okay guys thats it.
Any comments/critisicm/randomness will be much appreciated. Thanks!
 
Alright, I'll give you a quick rate. I don't really get that Azelf, but if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Rotom is perfectly fine, and has excellent synergy with Ttar defensively.

Ttar. I would recommend making this a pseudo-Boah with Sub/Fire Blast/Ice Beam/Dark attack (Crunch or Dark Pulse). You can't do an efficient job of luring unless you know what's coming in; with Sub, you can remove all prediction. Plus, you'll have a way to deal with Scizors coming in to BP you, namely Blasting while they break the Sub. EVs will need tweaking for this, though, check the analysis because I'm no EV wizard. Lefties would be nice too.

What you gonna do? It's Scizor.

Gyara. You find yourself using it to counter Heatran and Lucario, but don't like how it dies too quickly. Use Resttalk DD Gyara (Rest/Sleep Talk/DD/Waterfall @ Leftovers, see analysis). With its natural Special bulk, bolstered by HP EVs, and physical bulk given by EVs and Intimidate, this Gyara is quite formidable at countering many threats.

Consider Jolly on Lucario so it can deal with Mamoswine.

Not a bad team, hope my quickie rate helps.
 
On Tyranitar I would actually suggest making him entirely a Special Attacker. Why? Let's take a look:

1) Crunch isn't doing you much good. Your attack stat may be higher than your Special Attack stat, but most things are more Physically Defensive than specially defensive, with the exception of Blissey. And 0/252 Bold Blissey only takes 35-41% from your current Tyranitar's Crunch, making it largely ineffective. Plus who switches Blissey into Tyranitar anyways? Everyone fears Choice Band/Dragon Dance, who annihilates Blissey, and even after seeing 1-2 Special Attacks, they will assume he is Boah and still not go for it. Dark Pulse is going to hit just about anything you'd want to use this hard anyways.
2) Earthquake pretty much just hits Heatran, as Flamethrower hits every other steel usually harder because they are more defensive than specially defensive. And no one keeps Heatran in on Tyranitar anyways. If you're really worried about Heatran, Surf or Earth Power could go in this slot, but it's probably better as Grass Knot to better eliminate Swampert and Hippowdon, two other common Ttar Counters.
3) It frees up a number of EVs. With no Physical moves, you're free to move the Attack EVs, but you are also free to switch natures from Relaxed to Bold, which lets you move your Speed EVs as well (since you outspeed Blissey and Machamp anyways). This gives you another 64 EVs to put into Special Attack or one of your defenses
 
I think that your azelf lead is inefficient for your team. It doesn't have trick or explosion, both of which are staples of azelf's move pool. I would recommend making the set something like stealth rock, psychic, trick, u-turn/explosion. Tricking bulky waters would be a pretty standard function of this set.

I would also prefer a standard tyraniboah instead of the current tyranitar. The set is substitute, focus punch, thunderbolt, and crunch. Your team doesn't seem to have any real way to break stall, which tyraniboah does easily. It seems like your best chance of breaking stall is to weaken up their physical walls with gyarados and then send in lucario to try to sweep, which doesn't really work if they have any physical walls left.

The changes I have listed should help your team break stall. Despite what you might think about your current tyranitar's ability to break stall, I assure you it has no effective way of dealing more than 50% to blissey, as crunch isn't at a high enough power.
 
I really don't see a whole lot of reason for the choice scarf on azelf. The only lead faster than it is aero who is very rare and you can switch to scizor right away. I also don't see flamethrower being that useful because Bronzong isn't really used as a lead and metagross always has occa berry. Your not really in need of a revenge killer when you have scizor with cb bullet punch and lucario with extremespeed. Gl with the team.
 
You could try a Scarf Flygon in place of Scizor as he is a good revenge killer and can handle Kingdra even after a DD. You have no Dragon attackers so Kingdra can easily set up. It resists Bullet Punch so it can be difficult to revenge kill unless very low on health. I think BP does around 30%. He can also absorb T-Waves and Electric attacks in general.

Or you could try Scarf Latias in this spot, which pretty much ensures that Salamence / Flygon / non-scarf Latias / Gyarados / Empoleon will never sweep. Latias can also trick a scarf on Suicune to keep it from Calm Minding, effectively ruining its usefulness.

Overall this team looks solid. You seem to have a nice gameplan. Lucario is such a bastard late-game.
 
Scizor should be kept but I can see the kingdra problem. Giving Rotom Thunderbolt will be enough as it should be enough to break subs while other varients can be revenged with lucario.
 
Try using Lum Berry on Gyarados. While it leaves you susceptible against Sandstorm, it is golden against Celebi.

Lategame, if you know they have Celebi, Dragon Dance heads-up. As they Thunder Wave, Dragon Dance again and Lum will activate, causing no harm. Then, Taunt their Thunder Wave, negating it, and Dragon Dance another time. After that, Gyara is ready to sweep with +3 Speed and +3 Attack.

Also, use Return > Bounce if you do. Using Bounce only makes you more vulnerable to Sandstorm, and +3 Return is enough to OHKO most things resistant to Water.

+Tinkerbell can do major damage to Gyara but that's why you don't attempt a sweep until you know if it is.
 
Thanks for the rates guys. Will definately try out a special tyranitar, thanks to all who suggested it.

@ Luxormanic: Thanks for the rate, it really got me thinking. Will try a rest-talk gyara, but i dont like having two asleep at the same time. Sleep-Talk can become crucial late game, and id rather have freedom between moves. Can you see any other options?
Being able to outspeed mamoswine would be awesome, but i dont know if i can afford the power drop in losing adamant, as id miss other crucial OHKOs.

@ Burt: Thanks for the idea, and the expert belt support, but with a sub, im gonna need that recovery.

@ brk: i think ive played you with this team havnt i? anyways thanks for the help, i definately thought azelf needed a change, and that sounds like a good way to fix it.

@ Wolfy: thanks, but scizor is definately more valuable to me. Plus i kinda like not having any dragons if i can help it. But yeah kindgra and suicune, if either have rest, its a bitch for this team to overcome, so i might try out that latias, just it wont be over scizor.

@ mc: thanks for the rate. discharge normally deals around 30% to most kingdra variants, so it breaks subs and i like the paralysis support as most of my team isnt the fastest going around. And if possible i like to keep lucario hidden, so if possible guys, leave lucario out of the revenge scenario.

@ Power: Thanks for the idea, but leftovers proves an invaluable item on gyarados, and i said my main problem was it fainting too quickly. Also celebi these days prefer to grass knot gyara, dealing about 30% each hit. With that and stealth rock up, my gyaras only lasting 2 turns, without being able to do anything back.

Any other ideas for leads, gyara options or how to solve my bulky water problem would be greatly appreciated :)
thanks guys!
 
This is probably annoying to hear, but Latias can Surf Heatran to death and Flygon can drop EQs on him as well as handling your other threats in Kingdra / Cune :naughty:
 
Get Earth Power somewhere on your Tyranitar :). It helps with Heatran.

Unlike Earthquake, you don't have to cut your SpA EVs to OHKO. If you can lure Heatran in on an expected Fire Blast, it will definetely do so, and that's a prime opportunity to smack it with Earth Power. Unfortunately, you'd lose coverage.
 
I don't really understand the point of Trick on your Azelf lead, especially a Trick Azelf with no Explosion! Explosion is one of Azelf's greatest assets and is something that really differentiates it from it's other suicide leads, who usually have sub 300 speed Explosions, whereas Azelf has a 361 Speed Explosion. Without Choice Scarf you will find it a lot easier to switch into Suicune as it Calm Minds and you can Explode, ending any possibilities of a sweep. I recommend Fire Blast / Stealth Rock / Psychic / Explosion @ Focus Sash, and your EVs will suffice. This will be much easier to get Stealth Rocks up and will also put you in an advantage against stall early game if you manage to play correctly.

If Heatran is a reoccuring problem since beginning to use an Earthquakeless TTar, Careful Tyranitar takes hits from Heatran and company like a champ. Max special attack Choice Scarf Heatran's Earth Power manages merely 23.75% - 28.00%, which is a 4HKO at best. Tyranitar can also Pursuit threats that are continuously troublesome in preventing a Lucario sweep like Choice Scarfed Rotom appliances that are immune to Extreme Speed and have a powerful STAB Thunderbolt. Having 2 Pursuiters on the same team may seem redundant, but having done it before i can attest to the effectiveness it has. Most opponents are not prepared for 2 Pursuiters, and usually aim to just weaken 1 of them.

Tyranitar (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 236 HP/20 Atk/252 SDef
Careful nature (+SDef, -SAtk)
- Crunch
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge
- Pursuit

The reason I am not suggesting Choice Band is that your team cannot really afford to give Lucario any free Swords Dances because it then becomes a very potent threat; Life Orb Stone Edge will OHKO Gyarados, and your Rotom does not have enough Defense to stop Lucario either, being specially defensive.

Actually, I think Rotom H should run Choice Scarf. It will make it a much more efficient Gyarados check, and your team gives Gyara quite a few chances to Dragon Dance. It will also in essence fix the SD Lucario weak and Trick will cripple stall teams just like Azelf did. Rotom H can also revenge kill MixMence if it is weak enough and gives you something that can touch Hp Fire / Earth Power / Grass Knot / Recover Celebi, a rare variant that can cause your team quite a bit of trouble. Tricking off your Scarf on un choiced Dark / Ghost moves will also give Lucario a free Swords Dance and Scizor a free U turn.

Rotom-h @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 4 HP/252 Spd/252 SAtk
Timid nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Shadow Ball
- Trick
- Thunderbolt
- Overheat

Good luck with your team.
 
If you're having trouble getting Gyarados in multiple times, use this:

Gyarados @ Leftovers
252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
-Rest
-Sleep Talk
-Dragon Dance
-Waterfall
 
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