#Sweg (Peaked #13)

[Eashy]

Hey guys, this is my first RMT and my first post on Smogon. The goal of this team is to be either be spamming CC with Sawk or Double Edge with Tauros by the end of the game. This means that I have to eliminate any Ghost types, bulky Psychics e.g. Musharna, bulky Poison types e.g. Golbat and Weezing, and other physical walls e.g. Tangela and Alomomola.


This team has been fairly successful peaking #13 with 1935 points on the Gen 5 NU ladder.

So without further ado, here is the team. (The Pokémon are in no particular order.)

Scolipede (M) @ Focus Sash

Ability: Swarm

EVs: 252 Spd / 252 Atk / 4 HP

Jolly Nature

- Spikes

- Toxic Spikes

- Rock Slide

- Megahorn

Scolipede is my lead ~2/3rds of the time. His job is to get up hazards as quickly as possible. Spikes weaken the opponent over time, which allows Tauros to get more OHKO's. Sawk doesn't benefit as greatly from them, however, they help an enormous amount on incoming Tangelas because Spikes turn a 3HKO to a 2HKO with a CC. I also have toxic spikes to also help with Tangela and to prevent Liepard and Exeguttor from doing their substitute shenanigans. Rock slide is used to kill the occasional Lead specs Charizard (which has fucked up my team badly before) and 2HKO opposing Scolipedes. Obviously, Megahorn is my fourth moveslot. It is a great stab move and that works well with Focus Sash and Swarm. Max Speed to speed tie opposing Scolipedes and max Attack for the extra power. Focus Sash and Swarm are used because if Scolipede is hit while setting up hazards, and the hit lowers him to the sash, something is maimed by Megahorn.

Tauros @ Choice Scarf

Ability: Anger Point

EVs: 252 Spd / 252 Atk / 4 HP

Jolly Nature

- Double-Edge

- Earthquake

- Stone Edge

- Sleep Talk

In my opinion, Tauros is a very underused mon. He is behind Armaldo on the 1850 September Usage Stats for crying out loud. A scarfed Tauros is even more underused. He outspeeds ALL scarfers, including Modest Zebstrika and can usually OHKO all common ones with hazard support. Tauros doesn't stop there. He outspeeds any Swift Swim or Chlorophyll mon except for Floatzel and Jumpluff. Double Edge is the most powerful move in Tauros' arsenal. I don't really care about the recoil because by the end everything should be weak and not have a lot of HP left if the team members have done their job. EQ is for any rock or steel types remaining and Stone Edge is for ghosts. I don't need these moves if Sawk and Liepard have done their jobs. I also have Sleep Talk on here. I was having a problem with Jynx if it got a free switch into anything but Tauros and Liepard. Usually, I switch Tauros into the Jynx. If it Lovely Kisses, and it tries to set up, I click Sleep Talk and that’s one dead Jynx. If its scarfed, I take the hit and, if it stays in, I kill it with double edge. This also allows for Sawk to spam CC because I just eliminated the opponents scarfer. I run max Speed and max Attack for obvious reasons and Tauros is Jolly so it can outspeed weather sweepers. I use Anger point instead of the infinitely better Sheer Force and Intimidate because Intimidate can and has made people believe Tauros was scarfed when it came in because they are familiar with the Smogon set. Sheer Force is also incompatible with one of the moves.

Sock (Sawk) (M) @ Choice Band

Ability: Mold Breaker

EVs: 252 Spd / 252 Atk / 4 HP

Adamant Nature

- Close Combat

- Earthquake

- Ice Punch

- Stone Edge

Sawk is my wall breaker. With hazard support he can 2HKO Tangela, Alomomala, and every other physcial wall except for Musharna and Misdreavus. Close Combat is the mostly used move. It only fails to 2HKO Poison types, physically bulky Psychic types, and of course, Ghost types. EQ is used whenever the Ghost, Poison, or Psychic type switch in is obvious. Stone Edge is used for mons like Golbat and Driftblim. Golbat loses more than 75% health with Stealth Rocks up so it is effectively trapped and KOed as long as I hit the Stone Edge. Ice Punch is there just for when I need to beat Golurk. As said before, Sawk is the wall breaker. He can lower the HP of every wall in the tier enough so that Tauros can come in and clean up with Double Edge. Obviously, Tauros does not want to be locked into EQ at the end of the game. Sawk helps him with that. With a combination of CC and Mold Breaker. Sawk can OHKO every Rock and Steel Pokémon in the tier. Mold Breaker is also useful for EQing Weezing and Misdreavus through Levitate. Max Attack for most power and max Speed to ousspeed things

Musharna (F) @ Leftovers

Ability: Synchronize

EVs: 16 SDef / 240 HP / 252 Def

Bold Nature

IVs: 0 Atk

- Psychic

- Baton Pass

- Heal Bell

- Moonlight


Musharna is one of the best walls in the tier. It has a phenomenal support movepool, instant reliable recovery, a decent ability, a great physical typing for NU, a beefy HP stat, and respectable defensive stats. Musharna's role on the team is to wall anything and everything that is not Skuntank. It takes a hit, Moonlights if it has to, and then Baton Passes out. Pyschic is my only attacking moves but this leaves me to be walled by and Physcic or Dark type. However, Musharna needs all the power it can get and Physics is the most reliable STAB move. Musharna has Baton Pass to provide a slow volturn which is basically a free switch into whatever I want. It is also useful for escaping Skuntank's pursuit, however, I must watch out if the Skuntank just goes for the Crunch on my Baton Pass. Musharna provides Heal Bell support to any of my Pokés. Since my entire team is made up of physcical attackers, a burn is very unfortunate to everyone. If I can't kill the Pokémon that is about to WoW, I switch in to Musharna to synchronize it over. Most of the WoW users are either weak to Musharna or do use Eviolite so the Passive damage is very important. Moonlight is necessary on every Musharna set. It provides instant and mostly reliable recovery which is a godsend in the NU tier. The HP EVs give reduce passive damage and the rest of the EVs are thrown into physical and special bulk. 0 Attack IVs are to reduce the amount that Foul Play and confusion does even more.

Liepard (F) @ Leftovers

Ability: Prankster

EVs: 252 Spd / 252 Atk / 4 SDef

Jolly Nature

- Sucker Punch

- Pursuit

- Encore

- U-turn


Liepard is the most recent addition to my team. I wanted to use a Dark type to form the Fighting, Psychic, Dark core and originally I had Skuntank. Skuntank was used to trap and kill opposing Psychic and Ghost types. Skuntank was great and all but he was to predictable. Everyone know the set so they can easily play around it. I also had a problem with Bulk Up mons who set up on the first turn when I’m laying down hazards. I needed a solution that could solve both the predictability problem and the Bulk Up problem. What could be better than Pivot Liepard? Liepard's role in the team is to eliminate the Psychic types and the Ghost types and to stop set-up sweepers. It is great against people who don't know the pivot set. Sucker punch is used so Liepard can have some offensive presence and priority. Sucker Punch maims any frail Pokémon. Usually, the Sucker Punch is obvious with a Skuntank and they get a free sub or free switch into whatever they want. No one expects Sucker Punch on a Liepard so they stay in and don't sub which (hopefully) allows me to kill them. Pursuit is the same story, no one expects it. I use pursuit on Pokémon like Musharna who only have Psychic and are switching out.so I can get as much damage on it. Encore is to handle my problem with setup sweeper. Hopefully, I switch into a non-damaging move like Substitue or Bulk Up and I priority encore them into that move. Unless they're max Speed Bulk Up Floatzel, they are not going be able to hurt me. I have U-Turn because usually when a Pokémon is encore into a non-damaging move, they switch out. This provides my team with the all powerful momentum, hence the name Pivot Liepard. U-Turn also provides a little volturn core with Musharna. I run max speed and attack so I can encore opposing Liepard into Substitute or Swagger hopefully. The max Attack is used to get as much damage off as possible with Sucker Punch or Pursuit. Prankster is necessary for the priority encore. Leftovers are to limit the damage from entry hazards.

Piloswine (M) @ Eviolite

Ability: Thick Fat

EVs: 252 Atk / 240 HP / 16 Spd

Adamant Nature

- Stealth Rock

- Ice Shard

- Earthquake

- Icicle Spear

Every team needs a Stealth Rocker and I find that Piloswine is the best and most reliable. He has great bulk, a good ability, great offensive typing, and an immunity to Electric. Piloswine's goal is to set up SRs and to help with the killing of Rock and Steel types. He can also tank many hits well. He can set up Stealth Rocks on many of the Pokémon in NU and doesn't fear many attacks. Stealth Rocks are extremely important to the team because they rack up entry hazard damage. Ice Shard is for weakened mons that are faster than Piloswine. Earthquake is Piloswines main attacking move, hitting Rock and Steall types aeasily. Icicle Spear is used to break through substitutes and is is Piloswines best Ice STAB. The EVs are straightfoward. They enhance his bulk and his power. 16 Speed is to ouspeed max Speed Torkoal and hopefully kill it before it gets the rapid spin off. Thick Fat is a fantastic ability that allows Piloswine to resist the BoltBeam tactic.


So this is my team. I would appreciate any feedback and suggestions.

 

[Brawlfest]

I've fought your team 2-3 times, so I do have a clear idea of what it's main problems are. The first thing I suggest is Aqua Tail over Rock Slide on your Scolipede, as Water | Bug has the best 2 move coverage that Scolipede has access to if it wants to use it's STAB Megahorn (EdgeQuake has more coverage, but then Scolipede can't use it's STAB). I normally do not suggest this, but in this case I suggest Quick Feet over Swarm, as you seem to just want to get up hazards, and by using Quick Feet, you will be able to fire off all of your hazards regardless of paralysis. Normally people run Swarm for more offensive sets, but since all you are doing is spike stacking as quickly as possible, quick feet is the better option. Anger Point is also a very useless ability, and should be exchanged for Intimidate, as this allows you to live many moves and force switches. You also do not need sleep tealk due to Musharna carrying Heal Bell, and should replace it with Pursuit to garuntee certain revenge kills that you force the switch against.

Outside of that, this team is very well built. I could potentially suggest Jynx over Tauros as your team is very weak to Water sweepers, but I do not think that this is a completely necessary change. I could also suggest Thunder Wave on Musharna, as your team appreciates paralysis support, but again not a necessary change.

 

[atomicllamas]

Hey, so this is a pretty cool spike stacking offense team, and I really enjoy the use of some bulkier pivots in their to regain momentum if you lose it. However, I do see a few issues with this team. The first problem that is strikingly obvious, is that you have 5 physical attackers and a bulky Musharna, leaving you extremely vulnerable to Alomomola and Tangela (I know Sawk 2HKOes, but they can pivot to something else), as they can just keep coming in and wall your team (especially alomomola, cause Liepard won't want to switch into scald either). The second problem that I see is the use of a suicide lead spike stacker, with nothing to spin block for you, I know spinners aren't that common, but all of the common NU spinners (Wartortle, Armaldo, and Torkoal) have no problems spinning on many of your mons.

To attempt to solve both of these I recommend the following set in place of Musharna:

Misdreavus @ Eviolite
Levitate
4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid
-Nasty Plot
-Shadow Ball
-Thunderbolt
-Will-o-wisp / Taunt

This allows you to block those spinners, and use most of them as set up fodder, will-o-wisp creates set up chances against many things that would usually do good damage to Misdreavus, while taunt prevents it from being statused. I generally prefer will-o-wisp because then missy can act as an "oh shit" check to many physical attackers. To be honest, I just really think that ghost is a necessity when you are building a spike stacking team, as you basically waste a slot on your team if you don't. This also allows you to get around bulky Musharna and Misdreavus that wall the rest of your team if Liepard dies to early (I think bulky Misdreavus wins vs Liepard anyways tbh).

That being said, if you make this change, you should keep sleep talk on Tauros (you probably should either way), but do change anger point to intimidate. Quick Feet is an okay choice, but Swarm is good too, as it allows you to fire of super powerful Megahorns at 1 HP, so I would stick with your personal preference.

All in all this is a well built team, grats on the peak, and welcome to smogon!

 

[Eashy]

Sorry for taking so long to respond.

Thank you for the suggestions! So I switched Anger Point to Intimidate, Rock Slide to Aqua Tail on Scolipede, and Musharna to Misdreavus. I like the first two suggestions, however, I now have huge problems with Bulk Up Fighting types such as Gurdurr. The only way to effectively deal with Bulk Up Gurdurr is to switch in Liepard on the Bulk Up and Encore. Before, I could just switch into Musharna and Psychic. Even with max SpA on Misdreavus, Shadow Ball only does ~30% to the Gurdurr and it can OHKO me back with payback.

I do recognize the need for a Ghost Type on the team though. I've been thinking of adding Sub-Disable Haunter to effectively deal with any Bulk Uppers. However, I would have 5 extremely frail Pokémon and only 1 bulky one. I have not been able to try Haunter because I have had very little free time.

 

[Brawlfest]

Hmm, my only response to this is the fact that your team is weak to any pokemon with a high enough Physical Bulk, due to lack of special attackers. I may suggest All Out Attacking Samurott over sawk (as it is the weak link of the team). This is because rather than having a physical wallbreaker to break down special walls, you want the exact opposite. Samurott can 2HKO Alomomola, and OHKO Tangela, as well has knock a hefty 76.2-89.5% off of gurdurr, giving you a very good way to take off a fine chunk off of it. This allows you to respond to gurdurr as long as you take off 30%, and gives you a way to decimate physical walls which wall the rest of your team.

Set that I recommend in place of Sawk:

Samurott @ Life Orb
Ability: Torrent
EVs: 252 SAtk / 252 Spd / 4 HP
Modest Nature
- Hydro Pump
- Hidden Power [Grass]
- Ice Beam
- Taunt