ORAS PU Old Habits Die Hard (Semi-Trick Room Team)

[Mango Smoothie]

Also here's something to listen to while you're here

Introduction/Backstory
Back at the start of XY I recieved a Frisk Dusclops in a wonder trade, and thought to myself "Thats a hidden ability Dusclops, I wonder what I can do with it". So I hopped on the internet, and after briefly searching I found Smogon's Dusclops entry suggesting a Trick Room support set. This lead me to try playing Trick Room in BW UU, which I was very bad at (I think I broke 1300 once the whole time). But competitive pokemon was really cool and Trick Room teams were fun, so I played XY UU Beta for a while (was still bad), then eventually tried out a whole bunch of tiers like OU, Ubers, RU for a solid 15 minutes, OU No Mega (rip), OU again, and now PU. With Gen VI coming to a close, I wanted to go out with the archetype that got me started, but didn't want to be super dependent on Trick Room being set like teams I've built in the past tended to be. So, I now present to you a Semi-Trick-Room team. The team has done reasonably well on the ladder, sticking around the mid-1500s.

Teambuilding Process

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Started off with OTR Beheeyem, really powerful and can manhandle common Psychic-type switch-ins with its coverage. Stoutland was second, it can break bulkier teams without TR, and with TR set its matchup VS offense improves drastically. Ampharos was next as its slow, bulky, and can volt-switch around to help me maneuver my way into my breakers (also static hax). At this point the team was looking kind of slow, and since I didn't want full TR I went with Scarf Leafeon as my ground resist/revenge killer, with more pivoting ability in BP. Adding SD Pawniard was my next move, it can function well both in and out of TR thank sot Sucker Punch, and can also weaken pokemon like Vullaby, Tangela, and Quagsire. In the last slot, I wanted another TR setter (so I can save Beheeyem for late-game), but I also needed rocks, and after doing a quick "/ds Stealth Rock, Trick Room, PU" I saw my options were limited. I initially chose Solrock, but I found it largely underwhelming so I switched it with Carbink, whose main draw was Sturdy Custap Explosions.
Update 11/20: Rotom-S was replaced Ampharos to help with the Monferno weakness.

In-Depth Analysis

I Fought the Law (Beheeyem) @ Life Orb
Ability: Analytic
EVs: 232 HP / 24 Def / 252 SpA
Modest Nature
Psychic | Shadow Ball | Thunderbolt or Signal Beam | Trick Room
Beheeyem is the main Trick Room attacker, doubling as wallbreaker and cleaner sometimes even in the same battle. Kind of odd EV spread, but the HP EV's get me to a LO number, while maximizing special attack. The leftover EVs were put into defense because it needs to take priority hits marginally better. Another thing to note is that I don't want to be wasting turns setting up TR to hit defensive pokemon like Quagsire, so I'm running Modest instead of Quiet. The moves are fairly standard, Psychic STAB doing big damage to most switch-ins and even OHKO-ing some frailer offensive resists thanks to Analytic. Shadow Ball hits other psychics (especially Bronzor) hard, and Thunderbolt is used pretty much solely for Vullaby, but also actually does notable damage to Pawniard and guarantees the OHKO on Lapras after rocks damage. However, if you're not worried about Vullaby, Signal Beam is your best bet for Cacturne, but is kind of meh otherwise (Recover could be useful on forced switches).

Man Alive! (Stoutland) @ Silk Scarf
Ability: Scrappy
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
Return | Facade | Superpower | Crunch
Dear God Stoutland is good. I went Silk Scarf over Choice Band because the ability to switch moves is really handy (especially when trick room is active), and I don't know of any KOs I miss with Silk Scarf. The moves and EVs are fairly standard, hit everything hard and fast. One of the benefits of Stoutland (over something like Guts Ursaring), is I can pressure balanced builds more consistently, because (a) its not super reliant on status to hit hard and (b) its faster than most defensive pokemon, which makes me less reliant on Trick Room against slower teams. However, against offensive teams, it can potentially take out 2-3 members under one Trick Room cycle, because offensive teams' ways of dealing with it oftentimes rely on being faster. Pulls its weight most all the time.

Underclass Hero (Rotom-Fan) @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 248 HP / 56 SpA / 204 Spe
Timid Nature
Volt Switch | Air Slash | Pain Split | Will-O-Wisp
Rotom-S serves as this team's Monferno check, status spreader, and pivot. The EVs maximize bulk, while allowing it to outspeed Monferno and Stoutland. Volt Switch is for pivoting, while Air Slash is here to hax the hell out of everything. Pain Split is unreliable but against specially bulky things like Audino or Muk it can usually bring Rotom back to ~90%, which helps in whittling then down. Lastly, Will-O-Wisp is used to check stuff like Cacturne and Pawniard, as they can potentially get out of hand, while also making it easier to wear down stuff like Quagsire, the aforementioned Audino, among other things on predicted switches. It can also be sent out during a Trick Room cycle when you want to kill something at low health, while at the same time keeping up momentum.

Eden Roc (Leafeon) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Leaf Guard
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
Leaf Blade | Knock Off | Bullet Seed or Frustration | Baton Pass
Leafeon serves as this team's ground check, revenge killer, and also pivots with Baton Pass. Leaf Blade is STAB, with Knock Off there to remove leftovers/eviolites from bulky pokemon like Tangela. I've never actually used the third move, though I sometimes switch it up between Bullet Seed (to break Golem's sturdy) and Frustration to hit things like Monferno/Jumpluff harder just in case. A lot of stuff is potentially useful in that third slot. Baton Pass is to keep up momentum, like passing out of a Mawile into Ampharos. Being the only actually fast pokemon on this team, Leafeon keeps things like Floatzel, boosted Gorrebyss, and faster in check, preventing them from doing too much damage if I can't get up Trick Room.

Lift Me Up (Pawniard) @ Eviolite
Ability: Defiant
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
Knock Off | Iron Head | Sucker Punch | Pursuit or Swords Dance
Pawniard is much better than I anticipated it being, just by virtue of Knock Off spam. Trick Room makes it so that way I'm not as reliant on Sucker Punch to handle offensive threats, who usually don't appreciate Pawniard's other attacks. Knock Off+Iron Head are for STAB, with Sucker Punch here to offset low speed outside of Trick Room. The last move is (again) one I don't use that much, Swords Dance can turn Pawniard into a win-con and has been handy against teams without Quagsire, whereas Pursuit can be used more effectively under Trick Room because faster threats will at the very least have to eat the hit before they attack.

Diamond Eyes (Carbink) @ Custap Berry
Ability: Sturdy
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD
Impish Nature
Stealth Rock | Trick Room | Magic Coat | Explosion
Carbink is simultaneously really handy and awful, which leaves me with mixed feelings. It gives me rocks, another trick room setter, an anti-lead, and instant momentum with Explosion (which hits hard despite Carbink having 0 attack). EVs make it a reliable flying/normal resist, able to take repeated hits from the likes of Stoutland and Dodrio, getting more Trick Rooms set up. I however cannot emphasize how many times carbink has contributed next to nothing in games where I misplay with Magic Coat and start off 5-6 without Trick Room set, or explode into a Misdreavus switch-in. Thats more on me than on Carbink, but its general passivity outside of Explosion means I'll have to click Explosion sometimes just to prevent something like SubSD Bouffalant from sweeping.

Replays
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/pu-477265972 - VS Offense, Explode on Misdreavus
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/pu-478763949 - VS that boomburst team

Threatlist

(ie: Hazard Spam) - Since I lack defoggers and reliable recovery, hazard heavy teams can get the upper hand relatively easily early on. Magic Coat can alleviate this somewhat, and since these tend to be HO they usually don't have defog the pressure can go both ways.

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(Trick Room) - Slow wallbreakers like Cacturne and Marowak can be threatening under TR because they'll 'outspeed' the pokemon I usually rely on to check them. In a similar vein, other trick room teams are threatening because I'm not going min speed on my pokemon so I'll be outsped most of the time. Though its still funny when turn 1 you both try setting Trick Room.

Considerations

This switch is mostly to combat hazard stack HO, as Duosion takes no damage, and can give similar power (without the recoil). It however does have less use against not-as-fast teams, as they usually have reasonable bulk, and without Eviolite Duosion is kinda frail.

A possible direction the team could take is to ditch "semi trick room" and go more for a "BO with Trick Room support," which would make carbink the easiest member to swap out because its only here because I needed Rocks+TR.

Conclusion
It's been ~2 years since I last tried seriously playing trick room, and its just like how I remember it--really fun and exciting, but inconsistent. It'll either be I get up TR with Beheeyem at ~60% and sweep from there, or I won't set TR the entire game and wonder why I'm using Carbink. I do like bulky pokemon (both as a pokemon fan and to have on teams), which is why I tend to stall teams a lot, and Trick Room gives me some of the familiar resilience of bulky teams while keeping the option to switch to fast-paced offense open. On a more sentimental note, the last ~3 years of PS/Smogon have been a ton of fun despite ruining my ability to casually play pokemon games and I'm really excited for what gen VII has in store. Here is the importable if you want to give the team a whirl.

Thanks for reading and have a nice day!​

 

[Anty]

Yo, cool team and an interesting concept.

The biggest issue I see with this team is that it doesn't use your Trick Room to the fullest potential, and as you said, Ampharos is fairly expendable, so I think it could be replaced with a stronger Trick Room sweeper. There are lots of common Trick Room mons like Ursaring, Marowak, and Rampardos, which should be considered, but I believe a nice choice for this team would be Octillery due to its extreme strength and coverage and lack of common counters atm. It also has the bulk to be potentially useful later in the game.

Next, this team suffers from an exploitable weakness to Monferno, and dislikes fastish bulky Pokemon like Leafeon along with Sucker Punch users. A nice option could be Rotom-Fan over Stoutland, as the team has a good amount of wallbreaking support with Octillery and Beheeyem, however Rotom-f provides a crucial fast Mach Punch resist, and has Will-O-Wisp in order to cripple Pokemon such as Cacturne and Pawniard that may get out of hand.

Lastly, Aerial Ace should be used on Leafeon's last slot, in my opinion, to help further check Leafeon and Monferno if they get out of hand. Baton Pass isn't too crucial as you can always try to double switch if need be. As for your moveset slashes, I can see merit in all of them so I think you should just try to play around with them and decide whats right for you.

suggestions

Octillery @ Life Orb
Ability: Sniper
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpA
Quiet Nature
- Hydro Pump
- Fire Blast
- Energy Ball
- Water Spout
Life Orb may seem weird with Water Spout, but its necessary to change moves and a 150 BP Waterspout (even after some recoils) hits very hard

Rotom-Fan @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 248 HP / 56 SpA / 204 Spe
Timid Nature
- Volt Switch
- Air Slash
- Pain Split
- Will-O-Wisp
Outspeeds Jolly Monf and co.

Leafeon
Baton Pass to Aerial Ace

Hope I helped!

 

[Mango Smoothie]

thanks so much for the rate, I tried out the changes (Aerial Ace 10/10) and found that losing Stoutland wasn't exactly ideal because the little bit of initial speed was helpful when starting off on the wrong foot, but Rotom-S was a revelation so I swapped out ampharos for it. Octillery was really hit or miss, having very little speed wasn't really ideal when one TR user's purpose is to explode and another who gets worn down super quickly. I will update the OP in reflect these changes.