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Hello indeed. You may have noticed the team name, inspired by some smartass on Shoddy who had a field day after I sweeped someone 5-0 twice in a row. This team is designed to be very offensive and to keep pressure at all times. I've refined it and refined it, switching out pokemon from my original team and refining movesets. The original team can be found here if you wish to see it. Anyway, here's the lineup: [sprite]376[/sprite] [sprite]212[/sprite] [sprite]373[/sprite] [sprite]380[/sprite] --- Metagross @ Lum Berry Ability: Clear Body EVs: 252 HP/170 Atk/80 Def/8 Spd Adamant nature (+Atk, -SAtk) - Bullet Punch - Explosion - Stealth Rock - Earthquake / Meteor Mash Metagross is my favorite lead so far, and he has yet to fail me in a big way. His incredible bulk almost guarantees setting up stealth rock. Considering the small batch of common OU leads, its extremely easy to predict what one will do; for example, for an Aero, its obviously a starting taunt, which makes for an excellent opportunity to switch in, say, Celebi, or Latias, to kill it. Not only that, but with proper prediction, Metagross can suck up a ton of damage in the early and midgame, while returning from his 382 attack. Bullet Punch is a clear choice. Not only does it make up for his pathetic base speed, but its brilliantly useful for taking out the lead sashers. And with STAB, it ends up being Meta's attack of choice against many opponents over EQ; considering the amount of resistances and immunities to EQ there are in the leads. I personally would prefer Meteor Mash over Earthquake. However, I ran Meteor Mash to start with, and it ended mostly in disaster whenever I faced fellow Metagross leads. The unfortunate thing is that generally, it was extremely useful against most all other leads. For example, Gengar are OHKOed by it, Swampert take heavy damage, Azelf are 2HKOed with Metoer Mash + Bullet Punch. However, against fellow Metagross's, Earthquake is a clear choice, and it can be useful. Stealth Rock is fairly obvious. Explosion is the prediction move of choice here, and is the reason Metagross is so effective; most suicide leads can't really do much aside from set up rocks then explode in your face. However, Metagross can take an Explosion from pretty much anything in its stride, taking less then 60% from the average Azelf and less then 50 from the average Metagross lead. Not only that, but once a sweeper switches in, Metagross does a fantastic job of taking them out with Explosion; or, if its something like Infernape or Heatran, I can switch out to something safer. Lum Berry is what allows this set to function with no hindrances. The reason for it over the obvious Occa berry is because: A. for most experienced players, they won't use a fire attack because occa berry is so expected. and B. for players who don't predict much, its easy to switch out of the predicted fire attack. Secondly, Lum Berry enables Metagross to eat status that would normally cause big problems for other members, and simply eat up status like sleep that often comes towards leads. Scizor (M) @ Life Orb Ability: Technician EVs: 252 HP/252 Atk/6 Def Adamant nature (+Atk, -SAtk) - Bullet Punch - X-Scissor / U-turn - Swords Dance - Brick Break / Superpower Scizor. The incarnation of overused. The definition of a revenge killer. This classic set perfectly suits my great enjoyment of prediction. I do not like choice; I feel it ruins the point of predicting. Scizor is already powerful enough to do his job as a revenge killer to near perfection without a +1 boost to attack from a Choice Band; a x1.3 boost from Life Orb is plenty good enough, and considering how many switches he causes and his plentiful defenses, getting off a Swords Dance isn't the most difficult thing in the world. Bullet Punch is totally self explanatory and is the key move in this entire set. Swords Dance enables Scizor to make full use of the freedom of moves, along with the ability to elevate his already high attack (394) to broken levels, and allows Scizor to use Superpower with impunity. U-turn is the lategame move that barely ever gets any use. The coverage provided by Bullet Punch and Superpower rarely requires its use, but in the lategame, it can sometimes get used. Finally, Superpower. Brick Break is what I was using for a long time, and frankly, I got tired of the lack of power. Superpower allows him to score so many more OHKOes such as Tyranitar, and with Swords Dance, its quite usable. Life Orb is an absolute must. The rest is self explanatory. Rotom (Rotom-h) @ Leftovers Ability: Levitate EVs: 252 HP/168 Def/88 Spd Bold nature (+Def, -Atk) - Thunderbolt - Hidden Power [Grass] - Overheat - Will-o-wisp / Shadow Ball The toaster. I used to hate that horrible orange blob with oven gloves, but I fell in love with it the moment I used it. Quite possibly one of my favorite pokemon I've ever used on Shoddy, behind Porygon2. His fabulous typing and utility cannot be ignored. Not only can he switch in from Metagross on virtually every lead in the game, he can also counter them, all, with moderate effectiveness. Azelf is almost guaranteed to explode after having set up rocks and taken some damage, so with prediction (my favorite word) this guy can eat it easily. Same goes for Metagross, Snorlax, and all other exploders. Thunderbolt is the bread-n-butter STAB move that eats away at opponents and can quickly check Gyarados, Starmie, and more. HP Grass seems an odd choice over HP Fighting. However, with a little bit of testing, the only person I use HP Fighting on is Tyranitar, whom I probably wouldn't keep Rotom in on anyway. Blissey is a quick switch-out since HP Fighting does pitiful damage to it anyway, so I have yet to find a threat that HP Fighting covers that HP Grass couldn't do as well. And, HP Grass enables him to switch in on Swampert and literally kill them. Overheat is the reason Rotom-h exists, and why my friendly toaster oven is so unbearably useful. It checks so many threats, its ridiculous. And, it enables a quick switchin to RS Forretres and OHKO them if they're stupid enough to stay in. Finally, Will-o-wisp. I'm extremely dissapointed in its use as of late; I simply don't have a turn to waste to set it up, and most of the time, I can be far more effective by using that turn to switch to an appropriate counter. As such, I've opened a consideration for Shadow Ball. Not only does it allow Rotom to deal considerable damage to both stall pokemon that ruin my team into little pieces (Cresselia and Dusknoir), but it would also provide some STAB coverage against stray Azelfs that havn't exploded yet. In any case, discussion is open. I am considering a more offensive EV/nature spread to better take advantage of his attacks, but I'm worried it will stop him from checking Gyarados. Salamence (M) @ Life Orb Ability: Intimidate EVs: 2 HP/252 Atk/220 Spd/36 SAtk Naive nature (+Spd, -SDef) - Dragon Dance - Outrage / Dragon Claw - Fire Blast - Earthquake The most basic, most obvious, most classic DDmence. The simple perfection offered by this set is that 95% of the time, I don't ever switch him in. He is my lategame everything. Not only does he effectively counter pretty much anything, but with Rotom-h to take care of steels, I don't actually need him to do all that much in the midgame. This enables me to easily setup a DD for a lategame sweep. Dragon Dance is the essence of the set. Fire Blast enables Salamence to preform an excellent job in ridding me of irritating Bronzong, Skarmory, and Scizor. Next, we get to Dragon Claw. Outrage is the obvious better choice for the lategame, but the freedom to switch moves in Dragon Claw is exceedingly useful. However, the base power difference is extremely difficult to overlook. I've been effectively using Dragon Claw for some time, and I'm reluctant to use Outrage. Still, it may be a better choice. I'll need time to test it. Finally, Earthquake. Simply, it allows Salamence to complete his lategame sweep quite sucessfully and if he comes out in the midgame, rid me of quite a few different threats. Suicune @ Leftovers Ability: Pressure EVs: 252 HP/252 Def/6 SAtk Calm nature (+SpD, -Atk) - Calm Mind - Ice Beam - Surf - Roar CM Suicune is my replacement for Celebi. Whilst it takes out my best Swampert counter, I believe he will work better then Celebi did. His purpose is do shuffle pokemon around as much as possible to inflict SR damage; use Calm Mind to form a reliable special wall; and proceed to deal as much damage as possible with Surf and Ice Beam. Latias (F) @ Life Orb Ability: Levitate EVs: 6 HP/252 Spd/252 SAtk Modest nature (+SAtk, -Atk) - Surf - Recover - Draco Meteor - Thunderbolt Finally, Latias. Ironically, Latias serves as my most powerful early game sweeper. I love Latias beyond measure; I have used her to full effect in almost all my battles. Her natural bulk is incredibly abusable and enables her to easily take fire attacks directed towards Metagross or Celebi, along with levitate past Earthquakes and Earth Power (heatran). She simply fills a niche role in my team thats invaluable. Surf is the bread'n'butter move for Latias, scoring SE on a suprisingly large batch of pokemon and dealing pleasing damage to everything that doesnt resist it. Recover enables Latias to stay in even longer, and considering how early I bring her out, its extremely useful. Draco Meteor is the reason this set is just so effective. Yes, it hinders her ability to stay in. However, STAB brings it to a jaw dropping 210 base power, coupled by her above average special attack, enables it to deal fatal damage to a great majority of the threats in OU, and if not fatal, deal extremely heavy damage. Because of stealth rocks, Latias can guarantee an OHKO on the standard Zapdos with Draco Meteor. Thunderbolt rarely gets used for me, but it does occasionally get some anti-Gyarados action. The most dangerous foes for Latias are Mamoswine and Tyranitar by an extreme far. Both are easily checked by Scizor, although pursuit-tar is an issue. DDmence is a big problem, as modest Latias gets outsped by it even without a DD, but Rotom and Celebi can quickly take care of him. --- Please, rate. Suicune offers a needed water type, but Tyranitar would be extremely helpful in this team, aside from the fact that he would hurt half the pokemon in it and would cause big problems for Mence (SR + LO + Sandstorm = dead fairly quickly).