An Offensive RMT

[SEO]

An Offensive RMT

Introduction:

For the past few weeks I've been working with my tutor MoP, and I've learned alot of things about pokemon. So I set out to make an awesome new team to learn with. I've had some pretty good success with this team on the smogon ladder, finally reaching a rating of 1500 after hitting the wall a few weeks back. This team is incredibly offensive, taking advantage of well placed explosions to open up my opponents team for my devastating sweepers. So without further adieu the team.

At a Glance:

In Depth:

Metagross @ Occa Berry
Ability: Clear Body
EVs: 6 HP/252 Atk/252 Spd
Adamant nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Explosion
- Bullet Punch
- Meteor Mash
- Earthquake

My lead, and such a great one it is. LeadGross is incredible and usually puts my team up to an early 6-5. You might have noticed no Stealth Rock on Metagross, well I just personally feel that dropping it in favour of Earthquake made so many more leads easier to handle. The EVs in speed are there to get the jump on other Metagross leads. Instead of having to practically lose one of my valuable exploders to Heatran or Infernape or risk a burn to Gyarados, I just stay in Earthquake while Occa berry dampens the fire attack and Bullet punch if the happen to have a sash. The ol' Meteor Mash Bullet Punch one two punch is still around for those suicide Azelf and Aerodactyl.

Gyarados (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 6 HP/252 Atk/252 Spd
Jolly nature (+Spd, -SAtk)
- Bounce
- Dragon Dance
- Waterfall
- Stone Edge

BounceGyra! This thing is an absolute monster after a DD and can still take Fire attacks aimed at my other members pretty well. I know why aren't I running some HP instead of all that useless speed, well I kinda like outrunning things. For example why lose because I'm just a bit too slow to get another attack in, instead just run the full speed and make absolutely sure that I'll outrun every other Gyara even after the Dragon Dance. But thats my philosophy. Anyways, Dragon Dance is for you know, speed and attack boosts, Waterfall is the main stab used for maiming things, Stone Edge is for other Gyarados, Salamence and Zapdos (although I always fail to KO it helps Scizor out a bit). Bounce is the star of the show, it works wonders against Celebi and Starmie catching people off guard and making them switch out of their Gyrados "counter".

Salamence (M) @ Life Orb
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 6 Atk/252 Spd/252 SAtk
Naive nature (+Spd, -SDef)
- Draco Meteor
- Outrage
- Fire Blast
- Earthquake/Roost

A classic MixMence, but it sure gets the job done. MixMence is an excellent wall breaker that usually nets me a few KOs per match. Again I run full speed to at least speed tie with other idiots like me running full speed and destroying the rest with a Draco Meteor. Draco Meteor is the weapon of Choice early on due to its humongous power and hitting everything but Steels at least neutral. Fire Blast is there to scorch all those pesky Steel types running around. Outrage is the secondary stab against other things (Blissey) and is the next line of defense after the SpAtt drop from the Meteor. Earthquake is mostly there as a filler but can also kill no scarf Heatrans, but on a team with Tyranitar its become a temptation to put Roost on him.

Scizor (M) @ Iron Plate
Ability: Technician
EVs: 252 HP/252 Atk/6 Spe
Adamant nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Bullet Punch
- U-turn
- Swords Dance
- Superpower

Scizor, the most used pokemon last month and with good reason. Late game this thing is a monstrosity, after it's counters are gone this thing can rip through the opponents weakend team. EVs, do I have to explain again? Iron plate? Yeah, although a bit gimmiky, this thing works pretty nicely. At the beggining of the match it makes a great feining for the more common CB set by not showing LO recoil and the use of U-turn. I'll Swords Dance whenver I feel its safe to reveal my true intentions and rape. I used to use LO but I always felt it hamperd an otherwise sturdy pokemon from its full potential. Iron Plate still gives a boost to Bullet Punch so I guess...

Tyranitar (M) @ Lum Berry
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 HP/252 Atk
Careful nature (+SDef, -SAtk)
- Substitute
- Stone Edge
- Crunch
- Focus Punch

SubTar, a surprise set that catches many people off guard. HP for max survivabilty and Careful nature to make it a great switch into SpecsJolt ,which otherwise rapes my team, Magnezone, and Rotom and lets me Sub without getting my Sub broken. Lum berry prevents that stupid Rotom from burning my Tyranitar or random toxics before I can get my Substitute up . Crunch and Stone Edge of great Stab moves and Focus Punch for hitting things that are weak against him hard hard.

Azelf @ Expert Belt
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 6 Atk/252 Spd/252 SAtk
Naive nature (+Spd, -SDef)
- Explosion
- Flamethrower
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Grass Knot

Ah good old Azelf. My second exploder and a pretty damn good revenge killer. He also can try his hand at a late game sweep with a wide array of attacks to chose from. Flamethrower is there to KO Scizor while it tries to kill me with Bullet Punch (Even after SR damage it never KOs), Grass Knot is for Bulkywaters like Suicune and Swampert, and HP Ice is for all the Dragons that are slower than me. Expert belt is there to give me a nice boost without the gay recoil from LO. Explosion is there to take out some of the bulkier counters to my sweepers, usually exploding on Zapdos and such. A pretty neat poke.

Conclusion:

I really think that this team has the potential to become a force to be reckoned with, but I'm still a ways off. I've tried to cover any problems that I have found during playing but, If you all can spot any things I looked over or any suggestions for item or whatever changes your help would be greatly appreciated. Well...

Rate My Team

 

[Solidus]

Not bad.

I'd put Stealth Rock on Metagross over Explosion however; you may lose an all out last resort attack that way but at least you still have Earthquake to get rid of Heatran which is essentially the main thing you'd want in a lead Metagross. Plus setting up rocks is always helpful, more so in your case as I see you having problems with Zapdos mid-late game. Whenever you're running Bounce on Gyarados, coupling it with Substitute is vital since you'll be vulnerable the next turn after you use it. Either running Substitute > Stone Edge or dropping Bounce for Earthquake would be a better option. I'd remove Leftovers and slap on a Life Orb for that extra power if you aren't against recoils.

Your spread on Salamence is a more offensive version of New MixMence, normally the EV's are ran as 84 Atk / 216 SpA / 208 Spe on those versions instead of maxing out Attack and Speed like you were doing and you also should change to a Mild nature. As to whether to use Earthquake or Roost, I say Roost so you won't have to worry so much about residual SR damage and also to cancel out LO recoils. On Scizor I don't see any problems with him other than giving him an Iron Plate >_>. If you're not using LO just because of the recoils then why not run Roost > U-Turn and drop Iron Plate for Life Orb.

Although I don't see anything wrong with Tyranitar, I still wonder how you'll do against Bullet Punches from Scizor's and Lucario's. Hopefully you manage to set up Subs quick enough in that situation. On Azelf I recommend LO but since you don't like the damage recoil then using NP is a possible option but you're actually better off not using it because it would upset the balance of the movespread.

 

[iKitsune]

To me this team cannot really deal with status and or stat uppers. Changing the first problem could massively change the complexion of the team for the worse. On the subject of stat uppers. I think it would be wise to scarf azelf with hp ice, psychic, thunderbolt/explosion, trick this can easily revege kill some of the top threats and use trick to pull off a late game sweep. You can also with clever intimidate resisting switching against say life orb gyara be ok.

This team begs for stealth rock literally anywhere you could put this on scarf azelf but i would prefer to see it on metagross over eq. Metagross doesnt really need eq as it can easily most leads with its other moves not to mention the most useful explosion in the game. Stealth Rock will really help particularly as you have max speed on a lot of your sweepers stealth rock in combination with sandstrom will enable you to run max speed on your sweepers something that i also feel is a necessity on a team like this and you wont miss out on those ko's.

Now because your metagross can no longer deal with the likes of heatran as it has no EQ (bear in mind it can still ohko it with explosion) I suggest we switch it to lum berry helping your team out that little bit more with status. To me heatran is not a problem to this team as you have gyara and mence whereas status definitely is.

Other than this great team i would hate to play against, as you would constantly be under the threat from all sides.

The rest is great scizor and ttar are fearsome on this team due to their unpredictability and im sure his has helped you to win many games. An the combination from panamaxis' hyper offensive team of mix mence and bounce gyara speaks for itself. Infact the only change is tyranitar between this team and that, nevertheless this is still an excellent team.

I hope you decide to implement some of these chages and Good Luck.

EDIT: IF I SEE "WITHOUT FURTHER ADIEU" again im gonna flip this is competely erroneous and should read "WITHOUT FURTHER ADO" please change this NOW!!

 

[panamaxis]

Okay, seeing as you run five of the same pokemon as me I feel obligated to RYT. For gods sake people, what the hell does lead metagross need occa berry for? You absoultely need SR on this team so replace EQ with SR (eq only beats lead apes) and replace occa with leftovers. Give scizor life orb, although you say you don't want to, why not run leftovers? Adamant nature on t-tar and put 6 evs into speed.

Adamant nature on gyara, 184 speed evs, 252 atk, rest in speed.

 

[SEO]

Well thanks for the rates guys.

@Solidus- Thanks for the advice. I really like running explosion on Metagross though, although that means that I have to sacrifice SR on him I still havent felt it affect me too much. Substitute on Gyarados seems pretty cool but 25% from SR and then 25% from Substitute kinda makes me wanna not try it. Adding LO + SS to the mix and hes not going to be alive for long. I probably only use bounce on KOs like against Celebi or Fighting types or whatever. For salamence i think ill try roost out see how that goes because SR is killer. Ill check out roost on scizor too.

@ikitsune

I cant find a spot on my team for SR though. Id really like it with SS to rack up damage for a late game sweep but where. If it was on gross then yeah EQ will have to go. Oh well.

@ Panamaxis

Sorry if its similar to your team but honestly scizor salamence and gyara are every team anyways and Metagross is becoming a super popular lead. If it really bothers you I could use Kingdra in Salamences spot.

Kingdra @ Life orb
Naive
252 spatt 252 att
Swift swim
Rain Dance
Waterfall
Draco Meteor
Hydro pump

Another Powerful mixed attacker. With one turn of set up it doubles it speed and its water attacks. It also has neutral SR damage so it can come in on things more often.

 

[AbsolDeath]

In Depth:

Before I begin, any changes will be in...red! :D

Metagross @ Occa Berry
Ability: Clear Body
EVs: 6 HP/252 Atk/252 Spd
Adamant nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Stealth Rock
- Bullet Punch
- Meteor Mash
- Earthquake

I know you want to use Explosion on this set because you want to dent something as you're going down. However, Metagross is so slow that it'll be KO'd by his opponent before he can Explode. So for that reason, I suggest Stealth Rock. This helps your team all around and Pokemon hit neutral by Stealth Rock receive 12% upon entry. Also, that Zapdos/Mence problem you mentioned in your RMT could be solved with Stealth Rock as they both take a nice 25% upon entry.

Gyarados (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 6 HP/252 Atk/252 Spd
Jolly nature (+Spd, -SAtk)
- Bounce/Earthquake
- Dragon Dance
- Waterfall
- Stone Edge/Substitute

To be completely honest with you, I'd have to say you're wasting Gyarados by using Bounce but with the mention of the fact that your opponent usually switches so that the incoming Pokemon takes minimal damage from Bounce, it seems like a good idea. I'm sure someone mentioned this as I read through the other comments but while using Bounce since you're going first, as you come down and hit the opponent, you're at the risk of getting hit by a status condition. So to seal your problem, although you're getting rid of Stone Edge, you can set up a sub before you attack ensuring that you aren't hit by status. Sure losing Stone Edge may be a hinderance as you lose your advantage to Pokemon such as Zapdos, but you've still got dual STAB moves on your side so you should be fine. Plus, you could always just Waterfall the first time Zapdos switches in, that's 25% (approximately) from Waterfall and 25% from the Stealth Rock I hope you add. This means Zapdos loses 50% already! Then, you can just easily go to Tyranitar as Zapdos Thunderbolts or Roosts and you now have the oppurtunity to sub as Zapdos runs fearing Stone Edge.

Salamence (M) @ Life Orb
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 6 Atk/252 Spd/252 SAtk
Naive nature (+Spd, -SDef)
- Draco Meteor
- Outrage
- Fire Blast
- Roost

Oh MixMence, what a beast. Having access to both Spectrums of offense puts Salamence at a nice advantage. Not to put too much pressure on Tyranitar, but I'd suggest taking Earthquake off of Mence as you might lose coverage against Heatran but you can Roost off Life Orb recoil as well as Stealth Rock damage while being able to flee to Tyranitar to absorb Hidden Power Ice/Dragon Pulse. Only concern then is what happens if Tyranitar disappears in the battle earlier then you'd expect, right? Not exactly. For a Heatran who resists Draco Meteor, he sure takes a shitload of damage from it. 40-50% IIRC + 12% from Stealth Rock takes Heatran down to 38-48%.

Scizor (M) @ Iron Plate/Life Orb
Ability: Technician
EVs: 252 HP/252 ATK/6 SPD
Adamant nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Bullet Punch
- U-turn
- Swords Dance
- Superpower

Pretty standardish Scizor with some uses of deception that I really like. U-Turn/Bullet Punch/Superpower are all moves on a typical CB set so until you actually Swords Dance up, they won't know its not a CBZor. Only problem is, as we know there are many damage calculators around and so when you're U-Turning around with Scizor and the opponent brings in a Hippowdon or something, they'll know you aren't running CB because of the lack in damage. Although you are trying to add deception and mystery to Scizor, I really think you should just throw a Life Orb on your Scizor so you can hit as hard as you can. Also, one thing some might not have noticed but I did is your EV contstruction. I was just wondering why all that speed? Scizor is actually a really slow Pokemon when you compare it to our metagame with a bunch of random Pokemon equipped with a Choice Scarf. So, you aren't exactly outpacing as much as this set needs to. Plus, who needs speed when you're whole set is based off of STAB Technician Bullet Punch!? So I really think you should at least test out the EV spread I suggest.

Tyranitar (M) @ Lum Berry/Leftovers
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 HP/252 Atk/6 Spd
Careful nature (+SDef, -SAtk)
- Substitute
- Stone Edge
- Crunch
- Focus Punch

Heh, I just noticed you were missing 6 EV's so you may as well add them into some stat. This Tyranitar helps your team out a lot when I really take a look at your team. For one, you can sub right away so that you can scout for how your opponent plays in terms of what Pokemon they bring out to counter your Tyranitar with. Let's say you're up against ScarfTran who just fired a Fire Blast at Scizor and you throw in Tyranitar to take laughable damage. You may use EQ to OHKO it but the opponent brings out Salamence. Now you have to flee as you don't want to die to a LO EQ. But with sub you can sub as the opponent goes to their Mence, then proceed from there. Plus you can attempt to add up some SR+SS damage by forcing the opponent to switch fearing an attack behind a sub. I'm not too sure about the Careful nature but if SpecsEon is that much trouble, I guess you'll have to keep Careful. And commenting on your choice of item, yeah Lum Berry might be nice so you can avoid nasty status but it could be seen as overlapping as you already have sub to counter status effects for you. With my leftovers suggestion, you could increase the longevity of your Tyranitar and attempt a bit of a stall out by subbing down while letting the opponent get hit by SS.

Azelf @ Expert Belt
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 6 Atk/252 Spd/252 SAtk
Naive nature (+Spd, -SDef)
- Explosion
- Flamethrower
- Hidden Power [Ice]/Psychic
- Grass Knot/Psychic/Thunderbolt

Azelf is such a great Pokemon with his offensive stats and speed. Explosion is great for killing off Blissey or just taking out something that is attempting to set up. Flamethrower as commented on earlier is nice for Steel types mainly Scizor. Now I'm not too sure what you should do regarding Hidden Power Ice. With SR, SS, and priority from Scizor, Salamence doesn't seem like THAT much of a problem so perhaps you could opt for using STAB Psychic to deal with Pokemon such as Machamp/Tentacruel as you won't want to explode at the sight of these Pokemon. Now if you're absolutely one sided about HP Ice, I guess you'll have to keep it. Now for your last moveslot, it may seem slashy but it's there with good reasoning. Thunderbolt may seem like a nice option over Grass Knot in cases such as fighting a Vaporeon. And as most Gyarados' tie in speed with Azelf after one DD, this could become an option to DDGyara. But, I'd suggest keeping Grass Knot as not much aside from MixMence can do major damage to Swampert.
I hope my rating will help you further your teams success!!!!




~Absol

 

[SEO]

Thanks alot for the rates guys. I think you guys are underestimating the power that bounce brings to the table. Bounce singlehandedly removes Celebi as your opponents Gyarados counter. Bounce also has a chance to paralyze the pokemon coming in to take the bounce. Yeah I just noticed that Salamence is becoming less and less off a problem Im just not sure about SR. Believe me I know how good it is but really I jsut dont want to give up explosion, although it never hurts to test it out right?

Lum berry on Tyranitar is there on purpose, Tyranitar is my Rotom check, but Rotom's can carry WoW and I'd hate to be one pokemon down thanks to the quicker Rotom WoW before I can sub up. It also helps In case of Toxic or Toxic Spikes since I like to keep Tyranitar alive for as long as possible to take special attacks. Careful is there to take less damage from SpecsJolt letting me Sub up and him not breaking it. electric types in general have been gay to this team and Tyranitar is my answer.

As for Salamence, after disscussing it with a friend of mine I think Im going to drop it after all for MixKingdra. MixDra has alot of advantages over Salamence like being SR neutral, having rain dance to cancel out the SS, resists Scizors BP and gives me another Heatran check,and a one turn set up move that gives me an agility and a double to my water type moves. Salamence gets worn down way too easily with SR doing 25% LO doing 10% and SS doing 6%. That adds up to 41% from just attacking not to mention taking a hit if you try to switch into a move. This leaves you very open to Scizor just raping you so I dont really know any more.

By the way the Kingdra set I want to try out is this

Kingdra@ Life Orb
Swift Swim
Lonley
252 atk/240 spatk/16 spe
Rain Dance
Waterfall
Hydro Pump
Draco Meteor

This guy can come in after maybe Heatran KO's something with like flamethrower or whatever you guys can imagine, and set up rain as they switch out. After swift swim Kingdra outspeeds pretty much everything not using a scarf. Waterfall is the weapon of choice, Hydro Pump for the more defensive pokemon and Draco Meteor for Stab. This is a great late game pokemon/wall breaker. I think that I could also consider Mystic water for its item because LO's recoil makes it like a ticking time bomb.