EQUINOX
A RMT By: Daft Punk
This team fought it's way to a score of 1414 points on the Smogon OU ladder, with a peak ranking of #39 (still climbing).
INTRO
Hello PokeBeach! It sure has been a while, hasn't it? A lot of things have happened since my last RMT; so many changes to the forum! It's quite something to see. And yes, you saw correctly, I am now part of the moderating staff! I'd like to take this time to personally thank everyone who's supported and guided me all the way to where I am today. I couldn't have come close to a team like this without your help! PokeBeach's VG program is a long-running dynasty, but after some of the founders of the program left, the forum itself fell into disrepair. But now I, along with the rest of the staff, are intent on making PokeBeach the VG community it once was. I think this RMT represents the new role I'll be fulfilling in the future of the program, and it's a great start. :] Again, shout out to all my bros on the PO server and on Skype, you guys REALLY pushed me through this. But enough with the mushy stuff, let's get on with the RMT itself.
Stall teams were a small but driving force in Generation 4, and it was incredible to see teams like Kevin Garret Stall slowly but surely pick a team apart, until the opponent had nothing left to stand on. I thought that stall really needed to show that it could still work in the next gen, even with hyper-offensive teams ruling the leader boards in the earlier days. Even the popular Rain Stall team archetype isn't full-on stall. So I focused my efforts on creating a simple stall team, using classic techniques like spreading status and setting up hazards, but adding a new twist with Gen 5 threats.
TEAM BUILDING
I wanted to start out with something simple, but effective. I didn't have much competitive experience in using stall teams, so I decided on using the old SkarmBliss defensive core to get things rolling along.
So that's really all I had for a while, lol. I read up on Smogon, and noticed that I lacked some important stall functions: entry hazards and a Rapid Spinner. I basically looked down the list of possible Rapid Spinners and Donphan looked to be a good choice. Donphan enjoys high usage stats and survivability in UU, so I'd thought he'd be fun to try out in OU. Although I had better Rapid Spin options in Tentacruel, Starmie, and some other lower-tier choices, I thought Donphan would lay down some foundation for eventual additions to the team.
So to finish up the entry hazard trio, I needed a Toxic Spike abuser. You may have noticed that I use very simple team-building strategies; I think of something the team needs, look through a list of the Pokemon who can preform that job, and select the best fit. This is a method that I've always used and felt comfortable with, since you can easily fix mistakes by testing and making the needed replacements. So, with Toxic Spikes in mind, defensive Roserade looked to make an excellent teammate.
Again, I saw that the team lacked a necessity, being a bulky water-type. Tentacruel was considered for this spot, as well as the role of a Toxic spiker. However, I felt that tentacruel didn't preform too well outside of rain, and after a bit of testing, I felt that he didn't have the synergy this type of team relies on. I still consider Tentacruel every now and then, and I'd love to see an argument on why he'd make a good choice on this team. But as for the spot, I loved using Jellicent as an all-around wall, and his ability to cripple set-up sweepers (mostly physical ones) made a solid reason for being added to the team.
Next up, I had a member added that I had been thinking about for a while. That member was support Latias, and she was a JERK last generation. Without today's offensive momentum, many teams were easily stalled out by support Latias, a pokemon that could abuse Roar, Wish, and/or support at the same time. So that finished off the last of the "skeleton" of my team.
Well, I charged headlong into Smogon's server and get my butt properly handed to me after I rank up to a little above average. I really needed to learn how stall plays. So again, smogon was the place to study up and practice, asking a couple of players how they used Stall, and what strengths/weaknesses it had. It was quite a task! But I finally got used to Stall's battle style, and managed to improve my prediction/attitude in battles. So now, the team needed to reflect that same change. I noticed that the Skarm/Roserade/Jellicent Core preformed well, so I decided to make changes based of of that. I wanted something more specially defensive, and Jirachi made a wonderful counter to all the Thundurus running around then. Or at least a decent counter. Blissey wasn't doing much in the SpD department due to hax and many Stall-outs, so she was replaced.
So now, the team was getting somewhere. Synergy against weather really helped me out in a lot of battles (most of which were stall/ragequits) and I was usually able to get hazards up and the rest followed smoothly. Battles were getting a lot tougher with the shifting metagame and the popularity of Rain. Like before, Skarm, Rose, and Jellicent were HUGE in being able to check offensive and increasingly defensive threats. Latias was doing fine, but I needed something that could actually hold off Volcarona, which was an annoyingly large threat to the team. I still wanted the same coverage, however, and found that Specially Defensive Dragonite worked perfectly for that spot, having reliable recovery, viability, Multiscale, and many other factors.
Wow! This team was really coming together! I couldn't believe how nicely each Pokemon synergized with another, and I was very proud that such an original team was doing well on the ladder. I still had a few problems. Donphan was a prominent one, since it rarely did anything other than get SR up and Spin. Even though it did it's job, I needed something a little more versatile, similar to Dnite. But what other spinners were out there? I checked up on Smogon yet again, and found Claydol. Claydol could fill the exact same role Donphan could, and could do it as an underrated counter in the OU Metagame. I tested him out, and he did MUCH better than I expected he would. He had decent offensive coverage, and could set up SR and spin with the best of them. A small but effective change.
Now the team was in full motion. I had great synergy going, and matches were going fairly well. But I just wasn't finding the success I knew this team could achieve. So I took one long last look at me team, tested it even more, and after that testing, I found that Hippowdon made an excellent team lead and was able to shrug off hits from nearly any other lead in the weather-infested metagame. I tested him out, and he worked perfectly for the team. Although I lost Rapid Spin Support in Claydol, I found an awesome weather lead and stalling machine in Hippowdon.
Alright, this is the team that I first made the RMT with. But after some hard thinking and some suggestions by Bravo, I decided to go ahead and add Heatran to the team. He worked very well, adding just a small amount of offensive presence to the team while still being able to shuffle out and wall some threats to a certain degree. Tran really helped rid the team of a fire weakness, which wasn't too transparent until I took a harder look at the team. Thanks Blake. ;]
So, that's the team you see before you, the one that managed to hit #47 on the Smogon OU ladder, under my private laddering alt. I really couldn't believe that I managed to be one of the top 50 ranked battlers on Smogon, even if it was for just a couple of minutes. ^_^ Now that you know how I built the team, we'll take a closer look at it.
IN-DEPTH
Hippowdon (M) @ Leftovers
Relaxed Nature (+SpD, -Spe)
Trait: Sand Stream
EV's: 252 HP / 72 Def / 184 SpD
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Roar
- Slack Off
Hippowdon (M) @ Leftovers
Relaxed Nature (+SpD, -Spe)
Trait: Sand Stream
EV's: 252 HP / 72 Def / 184 SpD
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Roar
- Slack Off
So, we start off the team with the previously mentioned Hippowdon. Hippowdon makes a fantastic Pokemon to lead with, since his main job is to set up Sandstorm. However, Hippowdon usually makes late game appearances as well, since he can reliably recover and shuffle when I need him to. Getting Stealth Rocks up is also essential, as is for every stall team. This team isn't meant to be weather-based, so using Hippowdon is a fresh experience in place of using Tyranitar. This does, however, leave me vulnerable to other weather teams. Rain is the obvious threat, with only a couple of team members sponging SpA monsters like Starmie, Jirachi, etc. Sun could be harder to deal with, but I think that my team can play around it easily if I can predict correctly.
Hippo's weakness, obviously, is his pitiful special defenses. The current nature and EV's help offset this weakness while still maintaining a monstrous HP and Defense stat. This is key in maintaining the stall factor against weather teams, as mentioned before. For example, Hippowdon is great at coming in on non-invested attackers (like Scald from Tentacruel). Some calcs I found on smogon also proved to be very interesting:
Uninvested Politoed Scald- 40-47.1%
Uninvested Ninetails Fire Blast- 27.1% - 32.1%
He can also stall out some other predominant Special attackers like the lati twins, easily taking neutral hits from Dragon Pulse, and even non-specs Draco Meteor in some cases. I was amazed to see just how many things Hippowdon walls in such an offensively-paced metagame, so he naturally found his way to the weather-lead position.
Heatran @ Air Balloon
Modest Nature (+SpA, -Atk)
Trait: Flash Fire
EV's: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
- Fire Blast
- Hidden Power Ice OR Grass
- Earth Power
- Roar
The only "true" offensive Pokemon on the team. Heatran was already in consideration over Jirachi on the team; I just had the wrong set in mind. This thing sufficiently takes care of many threats to the team, even CM Jirachi if it doesn't have too many boosts up. I also opted for Roar over Dragon Pulse at some points, since I knew that getting hazards up and shuffling would be a higher priority in higher-ranked battles. Dragon pulse has been minimally useful for taking care of things like Dragonite and Hydreigon, but HP Ice is generally more useful, although maintaining an advantage over Rotom-W is very important. As to what moves to use is still something I'm experimenting with, and the current setup seems to be working pretty well, but I'd always appreciate advice or suggestions.
EV's are standard (noticing a pattern?), since I'm wanting to maximize speed and SpA to get kills quickly and easily. Sometimes I've wondered if using a more defensive set with some SpD or HP EV's would be better, but I really haven't had enough time to test it, which is another hint on how successful Heatran was on the team. The F/W/G core really did a lot more than I expected for team, and having synergy for nearly any move I expect has been a huge benefit. Pretty cool picture too.
Skarmory (M) @ Leftovers
Impish Nature (+Def, -SpA)
Trait: Sturdy
EV's: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 Spe
- Brave Bird
- Whirlwind
- Spikes
- Roost
Skarmory is here for what? You guessed it, setting up Spikes and phazing. Skarm can check almost any physical threat this team has problems with, although it certainly can't do that on it's own. One of my favorite terms that describes Skarmory is a "Defensive Pivot", which I like to think of as a Pokemon that allows me to analyze what my opponent is doing offensively, and send out the needed counter, or stall long enough to set up hazards and phaze around until I'm in a good position.
There's not much else to explain, other than the moveset and EV's. The moves I use are standard, as you would come to aspect. Brave Bird is there so I don't become Taunt bait, and the Spikes/Whirlwind combo is there for the reasons mentioned earlier. Once I get a couple of Whirlwinds off with Skarm (especially against lesser players) I get more ragequits, lol. And finally, we have Roost, which makes a fantastic recovery move. The only problem with Roost is that through these long battles, my opponent starts guessing when I will roost, and will either make a smart switch or hit me with now-effective move. But that's all up to how smart I play. Skarmory has been part of the team from the very beginning, and it couldn't have been more helpful.
Roserade (F) @ Black Sludge
Calm Nature (+SpD, -Atk)
Trait: Natural Cure
EV's: 252 HP / 120 Def / 136 SpD
- Aromatherapy
- Giga Drain
- Hidden Power Ground
- Toxic Spikes
Here we have Roserade, one of the lesser-used Pokemon in OU. Roserade generally isn't one of the first Pokemon you think of when "Defensive Pokemon" comes to mind. However, it does two things that are extremely important to the team: setting up Toxic Spikes (which are crucial in some battles) and providing Aromatherapy support, which are two of the main reasons I choose it over Ferrothorn, which arguably has better typing and defenses. That doesn't mean the Rose is a bad Pokemon. Having limited recovery and some offensive potential (I sometimes use Sleep Powder in place of HP Ground to get switch synergy going, and it definitely helps with the Sleep mechanics being in my favor), Rose makes an important and unexpected team member.
Roserade serves a very important purpose since it's my main switch into Rotom-W, who can give the rest of the team some trouble. Although Rose is the only electric resist, the banning of Thundurus and having Dragonite and Jirachi support definitely help bear the burden. Again, EV's are standard. Roserade was going to take more moves from the special spectrum, but I didn't want to leave it vulnerable to even neutral physical threats. Black Sludge is something that I've had a lot of questions about, with the popularity of Trick Rotom-W and Latios, oftentimes Roserade is the only thing I have on the team that could possibly benefit from a trick, and only barely at that. Still, Roserade makes another fantastic team support member.
Jellicent @ Leftovers
Bold Nature (+Def, -Atk)
Trait: Water Absorb
EV's: 252 HP / 216 Def / 40 Spe
- Surf
- Recover
- Taunt
- Will-o'-Wisp
Where would stall teams be without bulky water-types? Jellicent plays the extremely important role of spin blocker and physical wall on my team. Jelly is a fantastic support Pokemon that I can rely on in many situations, which makes him a valuable and long-time team member. Assuring that my hazards aren't swept away is, basically, one of my win conditions, so it's hard just to push how crucial he is to the team. Jellicent, in my opinion, is the epitome of a stallbreaker.
Jellicent's moveset is pretty standard. Since he functions as a type of physical wall, Will-o'-wisp is a good option for almost any switch in, since I can get some residual damage on nearly anything. Surf does a good amount of damage too, since I can usually get the burn with WoW anyways. Taunt really ruins a lot of Pokemon's day, especially if I can predict something that wants to set up is sent out, so then I can make another move without having to worry. Recover is also a godsend, since it allows Jelly to stall out some close battles, which again, is great to use if I predict a switch. This makes for pretty much the ideal Jellicent set, excluding Energy Ball Jellicent, naturally.
Jellicent has it's share of problems, though, the largest of which being Starmie. Coming in to a Rapid Spin is often obvious, so I either have to take a Tbolt to the face or deal with the consequences. I often find myself Recover-stalling Starmie, and it usually wins with Thunderbolt having more PP. Roserade does help in this effort, but it usually involves some risky plays. Jellicent stops lots of common threats that would harm this team such as Heatran, Infernape, Scizor, SD luke (with ice punch), and is scarily enough my best answer to taunt Gliscor. The EV's and nature are pretty much a given, maximizing defensive power while maintaining some moderate speed. All in all, Jellicent makes another excellent defensive pivot and spin blocker, which is more than enough for me.
Dragonite @ Leftovers
Careful Nature (+SpD, -SpA)
Trait: Multiscale
EV's: 252 HP / 252 SpD / 4 Spe
- Substitute
- Roost
- Dragon Tail
- Thunder Wave / Fire Blast (Used with a Calm Nature)
The star of the team. Dragonite has been slowly but surely gaining popularity since B/W was released, and now, it's one of the most used and successful Pokemon in the OU tier. This is due to many factors; it's versatility, it's amazing ability, great typing, among others. No matter why Dragonite became so popular, it makes a great final position on the team. Each one of Dragonite's many sets pose a huge threat to the the metagame, and this one is no different. Nite makes a good addition to the team because of the surprise factor it brings, and the many threats to the team it takes care of.
So, on to the moveset and EV's. This is a pretty close approximation to the ParaShuffler set, with Dnite setting up Subs, roosting, and spreading status, all while shuffling the opponent's team through waves of hazards. Since I have Jirachi to help with Paralysis, I sometimes use Fire Blast over Thunder Wave to send threats like Forretress, Skarmory, and Ferrothorn for a loop. I've been told that Dragonite is one of the most annoying Pokemon on the team, so obviously, I don't have any plans on getting rid of him.
The EV's are also pretty standard; walling special threats erryday (Nite can roost off Latios Dragon Pulses with ease). To do that effectively, I give him max HP and Max SpD, nothing special. For the set using Fire Blast, I run 252 HP / 68 SAtk / 184 SDef / 4 Spd for that extra oomph, while still maintaining survivability. Like I've said before, Dragonite is on the team because he does his job well, even with the many jobs he preforms. ^_^ THREAT LIST
PREVIOUS MEMBERS
Jirachi @ Leftovers
Careful Nature (+SpD, -SpA)
Trait: Serene Grace
EV's: 252 HP / 216 SpD / 40 Spe
- Wish
- Fire Punch
- Iron Head
- Body Slam
Here we are, standard Jirachi. This is one of the oldest and most tried-and-true sets I've even seen in competitive battling, and it has a good reason to be. Jirachi adds a lot to my team not through quantity, but by quality and he's really earned his spot on the team by successfully doing his job in every battle I've used him in, bar none. Wish support is one of his most important roles, especially after the removal of Stealth Rock to be used on Hippowdon. He's able to sponge almost any neutral special hit in the game, and able to outspeed (hopefully through a paralyze) and hax out some bigger threats, when I'm feeling lucky. I've found Jirachi to be an excellent "mind games" Pokemon, that keeps your opponent guessing throughout the entire battle on whether or not I'll send him out, call him back, or set up wish. It's crazy to see such an old set be used so effectively, even today.
One of the considerations I'm making for this spot is Heatran over Jirachi. Heatran would remove the sore fire weakness I have in the team (Jirachi, Roserade, Skarmory). But with the dominance of Rain, and the fact that I have sand to cover Sun weakness, it's still a tough decision. Although Heatran would make a great addition to the team (he can spread status and shuffle), it's ironic that Heatran is a problem to the team. Offensive versions with Air Ballon can be annoying, since it has super-effective moves against every one of my team members. Non-Earth Power users would be completely walled by my own Heatran. Here's the set I had in mind as a replacement:
Heatran @ Leftovers
Calm Nature (+SpD, -Atk)
Trait: Flash Fire
EV's: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
- Lava Plume
- Roar
- Protect
- Toxic
He functions as a Special wall as Jirachi does, but that's pretty much where the similarities end. Heatran has the added benefit of instant Toxic stalling and being able to phaze out opponents, but it leaves me without a Wish abuser, and adds a Rain-weak Pokemon to my team. I really have to consider the trade-offs here, so any advice/comments about this possible change would be extremely helpful.
CLOSING
I really think this is a successful team, especially since it uses stall. I've only got a few considerations to make for this team, those being a Rapid Spinner and a counter to CM Jirachi, most likely being Celebi. Claydol made a decent Spinner, but I need something a bit more synergetic. Although Hippowdon is preforming excellently, the weather can be to my disadvantage in some situations, and not having a spinner makes me vulnerable to the same Hazard strategy this team uses. I've also even considered replacing Hippo with defensive Politoed, as this removes the fire weakness in my team and remedies SS's residual damage. So if I could get some feedback or suggestions on these ideas, I'd greatly appreciate it. So, that's the team. I'm glad you've taken the time to read this; I know that it was quite long, and my grammar is far from perfect. Thanks again to the PB competitive community and my friends at Smogon, a lot of effort was put into this. So without further ado, check out the team, rate it, praise it, point out problems, whatever! This is Daft Punk, signing off.
