Enzo's Obnoxious Gamble

[Enzo]

--Smeagol---Skarmee--Tekno_Bozo-Magicarp-- Nurse_Joy--Mewtwo---

Overview

First things first, I h a t e clauses in the case of Shoddy Battle. I'll play them to humor people, but my view is that if a team is weak to a certain move or combination, you're only enabling them to keep being bad at the game. Yes, I said it: clauses are crutches for teams that are broken in the first place and have no place competing.

That said, the main focus of this team is Smeargle's diverse movepool, particularly his capability to be the fastest sporer in the entire game. Needless to say, it is VERY annoying to play against, though in it's present form it is far from unbeatable. Let's begin:

Pkmn@Item

Ability

Effort Values -> [sca = special attack, scd = special defense]

Nature

~Moveset

___________

Smeagol Smeargle@Choice Scarf

O W N T E M P O

252hp / 4def / 252spd

j o l l y

~Spore

~Transform

~Trick

~Explosion

--The idea is to outspeed the other guy's starter, put him to sleep, and switch out to a more apropriate pokemon (probably skarmory to set up stealth rock/spikes). Then, when one of my other pokemon is KO'd, this guy comes in to revenge-sleep.

--From the word go, this smeargle is a gamble. From my experience, none of the orthodox OU starters will outspeed him, but there's always a chance in my mind that someone will have also scarfed their starter for whatever reason. A more likely threat, however, are priority attacks though that's still not so likely until later in the game when they catch on to what I am doing. The other diceroll is how long sleep will last, since it can last anywhere between 1 to 7 turns. That number, along with whether or not the foe switches out, will determine how well skarmory can set up.

--Trick is mostly around to screw up blissey if there is an opening to do so, or possibly another pokemon. It's a nice option to have, but it almost certainly means smeargle's revenge spore is retired for the game.

--Transform can easily change the tide of the match, and it's really the only option this Smeargle has if he's the last pokemon alive (which will happen often because if all goes well he won't be subject to much harm in the first place). Another gamble here: if he's lucky he'll transform into a sweeper or the like and has a chance to clean out the other team or at the very least take out a few pokemon before going down.

--Explosion is the very last thing this smeargle thinks about doing: it's nice that he gets STAB but since his attack isn't that great (neither is it EV trained to try and make up for it) it probably won't kill whatever it is he's angry at if they've got any kind of HP left.

__________

Skarmee Skarmory@Leftovers

S T U R D Y

252hp / 64atk / 176def / 16spd

i m p i s h

~Stealth Rock

~Spikes

~Roost

~Brave Bird

--Most people will wait at least a turn just to see if I try to spore again with smeargle or switch out, so that usually gives me at least one turn to set up stealth rock in peace. If they keep their sleeper in or they send out the entirely wrong pokemon, I'll set down some spikes, however many I feel comfortable doing. Roost helps with that, and brave bird is quite a powerful STAB attack on skarmory.

--After everything is set up I'll switch it in occasionally on an earthquake or a fighting type (although the latter makes me nervous with many fighting types having good coverage with fire punch). It's not a perfect answer to fighters but it's probably the best I've got on this team, and it happily takes the otherwise deadly super effective hits for Blissey.

__________

Tekno Bozo Porygon-Z@Choice Specs

A D A P T A B I L I T Y

252hp / 220spd / 36sca

l o n e l y

~Tri Attack

~Hidden Power [fighting]

~Thunderbolt

~Dark Pulse

--Porygon-Z is THE generic special sweeper. With choice specs and the moves listed I feel he has decent type coverage.

___________

Magicarp Gyarados@Life Orb

I N T I M I D A T E

252hp / 252atk / 6spd

j o l l y

~Waterfall

~Dragon Dance

~Stone Edge

~Earthquake

--This is my token gyarados. I guess he has decent type coverage. He is particularly good against other gyarados because of stone edge, and sometimes I manage to get people to switch into an earthquake. His Waterfall is a good STAB move for when I don't have anything that's super effective. I haven't really been utilizing dragon dance on this gyarados since I started using this team. In fact, he's usually the first to faint when things get hairy. I'd change him or switch him out if I could think of a better pokemon to use, really.

___________

Nurse Joy Blissey@Leftovers

N A T U R A L C U R E

252def / 40sca / 396scd

c a l m

~Ice Beam

~Toxic

~Wish

~Hardboiled

--Wish Blissey needs no introduction, and we all know what she's for. With max EV'd def and scd, she can take one hell of a beating before she's KO'd, and if she does get KO'd, especially early on, you should be very very afraid. In this set, I use her offensively when things are typed in ice beam's favor, with hardboiled as her disgustingly wonderful instant recovery move. Wish is used for safe-r switches or sometimes to fake someone into thinking they have a turn to set up.

--Wish is particularly nice when it comes to the centerpiece of this set, smeargle. Over time, he's going to lose HP, and there are times when it might be too hard to pass up a gamble on that little guy switching in and wrecking someone's day with transform or his speedy spore. Wish will ALWAYS come before such a dangerous switch in to ensure that if he comes near a KO, he has a nice health boost to see him through to the transform or the spore before switching out or destroying dreams, respectively.

__________

Mewtwo Hippowdon@Life Orb

S A N D S T R E A M

252hp / 124atk / 132def

a d a m a n t

~Earthquake

~Crunch

~Fire Fang

~Slack Off

--What's nice about sand stream is that sending out hippowdon is practically setting up without wasting a move, which is why I frequently send him out after skarmory has done what it can to add an extra layer of HP draining: on a good skarmory run and then a switch into this guy, many enemies will be below 50% HP just for switching in, and then if Hippowdon is still out, he has a good chance to be super effective against them. Steel types who think themselves safe around this guy will have fire fang to deal with which usually surprises people expecting something else from hippowdon.

--From what I can tell, hippowdon has the capacity to be a fair physical wall and a decent physical sweeper, and this set tries to ge the best of both. Slack off gives him what he needs to stay out for longer sweeps, and his high HP helps ease any fears I might have about something swooping in to take advantage of his awful special defense (like, anything he might try to take out with crunch).

--Before anyone asks, there is no particular reason this hippowdon is named Mewtwo. The story with this guy is, I was using tyranitar as my physical sweeper and then I got ridiculed by some friends of mine. Apparently tyranitar is banned in official tourney rules, and I like playing an honest game so I switched him out for hoppowdon, whom has only impressed me.

-----------------------------------------

So, what do you guys think?

[fenzo666]

Drill Peck instead of Brave Bird on Skarmory.

[wraith89]

I don't think it's Brave Bird/Drill Peck that's the issue here, and mostly you are able to Roost off any damage you have taken from Drill Peck. But is running Spikes and Stealth Rock on the same set necessary? Because I usually think Skarmory wants Whirlwind... it's an excellent phazer.

[Enzo]

But is running Spikes and Stealth Rock on the same set necessary? Because I usually think Skarmory wants Whirlwind... it's an excellent phazer.

Is it necessary? Well, I'm sure I could make do with JUST stealth rock but I decided to put spikes on as well because of the interesting opportunity that smeargle opening with spore affords me. Pokemon switching in and losing nearly half of their health is just... incredibly appealing to me. Besides that, I never do very well with whirlwind.

[randomspot555]

Gyarados is pretty much dead weight on this team. Stealth Rock damage + sand stream damage + life orb recoil. And if it comes in on any attack that it isn't immune to (IE ground), you could easily lose half of it's health before making a single move.

Blissey can stay. Leftovers + Recovery move won't make sand stream too much of a hinderance. But if you want to wall and be immune to sand stream, you've also got Calm Mind Bronzong and any number of Tyranitar sets (which gets a 50% sp def boost in sand).

Porygon-Z won't last long as a specs user on a sand team. It can revnege kill with Scarf, but Gengar (3 immunities) and Starmie (cooler) do it much better with arguably better move pools.

Smeargle is extremely gimmicky and you can do better than Transform.

Instead of STAB (lol) Explosion, go with Destiny Bond. Much more of a guarantee to take the guy with you.

Now, as for Gyarados' replacement, one option is to ditch Hippowdon and thus sand stream.

But there's no current Pokemon that can do what Gyarados does while being immune to sand storm.

You've got Cursepert, which at least fills the physical sweeper role that Gyarados does. With much better defenses, resistant to Rock/Stealth Rock, and only one weakness, and a ridiculous move pool, it's a great Curse user. Regirock is also a possibility, as is Torterra, but Swampert probably does it's job the best.

Fake edit: I also find it ironic that you have a paragraph raging against clauses, then mention Tyranitar being banned in some tournament. So...yeah.

[Enzo]

Fake edit: I also find it ironic that you have a paragraph raging against clauses, then mention Tyranitar being banned in some tournament. So...yeah.

I understand where you're coming from there, but think about it this way: in a DS to DS fight, there will never be a "clause", so worrying about rules that don't exist in the real game isn't worthwhile.

When I said "tournament", I meant an event sponsored by Nintendo, as in "they sometimes give out mews to the winners of tournaments". If Nintendo says it's banned, it's banned. If some whiney kid on shoddy battle doesn't like/can't take getting status'd, it's just some whiny kid who can't stand getting status'd. If people want to use clauses on shoddy battle for an extra twist to gameplay every once and a while, that's fine, but insisting it be a standard like a lot of people on Shoddy do is just making you bad at the real game.

Dragonite is another example of a pokemon banned from official nintendo tournaments. Because he's banned, I would never use one against another player, just like Tyranitar.

Gyarados is pretty much dead weight on this team. Stealth Rock damage + sand stream damage + life orb recoil. And if it comes in on any attack that it isn't immune to (IE ground), you could easily lose half of it's health before making a single move.

He most certainly is. Someone suggested I try Kingdra in his place.

Blissey can stay. Leftovers + Recovery move won't make sand stream too much of a hinderance. But if you want to wall and be immune to sand stream, you've also got Calm Mind Bronzong and any number of Tyranitar sets (which gets a 50% sp def boost in sand).

I'm definitely keeping Blissey. She isn't bothered much by sand, especially with leftovers. None of my pokemon are particularly, besides gyarados.

You've got Cursepert, which at least fills the physical sweeper role that Gyarados does. With much better defenses, resistant to Rock/Stealth Rock, and only one weakness, and a ridiculous move pool, it's a great Curse user. Regirock is also a possibility, as is Torterra, but Swampert probably does it's job the best.

Swampert is certainly an idea I'll have to try out. As for "replacing gyarados", it's ok if whatever I put in his place doesn't "do what he does" because gyarados isn't doing much on this team anyway.

[Toffeuy]

How about a Timid or Modest nature for your Porygon-Z instead of Lonely

[randomspot555]

I understand where you're coming from there, but think about it this way: in a DS to DS fight, there will never be a "clause", so worrying about rules that don't exist in the real game isn't worthwhile.

There can be clauses. It's just like playing anything else. The people participating set up rules of the match beforehand. Just because they can't be enforced via the game itself doesn't mean they can't exist.

When I said "tournament", I meant an event sponsored by Nintendo, as in "they sometimes give out mews to the winners of tournaments". If Nintendo says it's banned, it's banned.

First, you never said anything about this being for official Nintendo tournaments. The official tournaments do have many rules and/or clauses, and are set up for 4v4 double battles, which again you never mention in your team.

So you have a team designed for official Nintendo tournament rules, but you don't seem to follow any of them? Nintendo tournament rules are 4v4 Double Battles, nothing above level 50, no two held items can be the same, and a bunch of banned Pokemon that I don't feel like listing, but most notably Tyranitar, non-event Dragonite, Rotom, and Phione.

Dragonite is another example of a pokemon banned from official nintendo tournaments. Because he's banned, I would never use one against another player, just like Tyranitar.

The difference here is that Tyranitar and non-event Dragonite aren't banned for any other reason than because they don't hit their final evolution until after level 50. Since Nintendo tournaments are done in the Union Room and all Pokemon must be at level 50 or below (no Auto leveling like on Wi-Fi or PBR), that's why those are banned.

He most certainly is. Someone suggested I try Kingdra in his place.

Kingdra gets points for being unpredictable and only having one weakness. However, it's stats are fairly average and almost all Kingdras need time to set up. While Gyarados and Salamence can get by with one DD, Kingdra almost always needs 2. And it's movepool is fairly shallow.

As for what I said about swampert, he can still sweep like Gyarados. But he can't sweep and do it fast. You'll be giving up speed for a lot of bulk.

[Substitute]

It seems like you have a lot of ideas..and you've put it all in a single team. Your team has no synergy. Your Gyarados..with 252HP..why? He will loose 25% when he switches because of SR (it's extremely common), he will loose HP due to Sandstorm and Life Orb. With all of that indirect damage it won't take long for him to get KO'd.

You also have way to much fighting weakness...seems like ppl nowadays don't fear the mighty fighting pokes. But they will tear this team apart! Infernape will OHKO 4 out 6 of you pokes for sure assuming it's the Scarf MixApe. Those 4 pokes are Blissey, Smeargle, Skarmory,P-Z. Heracross will probably dish out equivalent or more damage to your team.

There is also the infamous Dragon/Steel combo that is very common will give you some trouble. Magnezone tagged up with most Dragon pokes will give you lots of trouble. Magnezone will kill your skarm and now your only Dragon resist is gone. After a DD or two a Salamence, Dragonite and Kingdra will outspeed your entire team and be able to OHKO or 2HKO your entire team..

Since you can't defend against any of the dragons after Skarm is dead..your only option would be to revenge kill it...but nothing is fast enough in your team..that's why I'd suggest Scarf over Specs on your P-Z.

I don't know where to start and what to change...because I don't know what you goal with the team is..but good luck with it.

[Enzo]

There can be clauses. It's just like playing anything else. The people participating set up rules of the match beforehand. Just because they can't be enforced via the game itself doesn't mean they can't exist.

That's fine by me, but I'd never do it. I like the idea that anyone can pull anything out of their rear. I like the idea that both players can be punished hard for doing something stupid. That exists with clauses, sure, but there isn't "enough" of it. I feel like the strategy changes up in a way that encourages otherwise stupid moves (like switching out a pokemon the next move it's been sleep'd).

First, you never said anything about this being for official Ninte

ndo tournaments. The official tournaments do have many rules and/or clauses, and are set up for 4v4 double battles, which again you never mention in your team.

You're right. I wish I knew a lot more about the official tourney rules than I do, and I really appreciate that you put a lot of the basics out there in your post. I'd look them up myself but no matter how hard I google, I never turn anything up. :[ Only the TCG tourney rules, which is useless to me.

Kingdra gets points for being unpredictable and only having one weakness. However, it's stats are fairly average and almost all Kingdras need time to set up. While Gyarados and Salamence can get by with one DD, Kingdra almost always needs 2. And it's movepool is fairly shallow.

As for what I said about swampert, he can still sweep like Gyarados. But he can't sweep and do it fast. You'll be giving up speed for a lot of bulk.

Thanks for that advice. I really need to make my team "sweepier", and Kingdra has been working out for me so far. I don't do much setting up with him: his STAB outrage is sweet, though perhaps I'd do better with a dragon dance or two? I'm thinking about putting a choice scarf onto Porygon Z, or switching him out for an Alakazam.