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--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?