Intro
Hi guys, been playing for a little bit and decided to make my own team. However while I've been testing this on showdown, the true purpose of this team is to play on the actual game against a friend of mine (as well as against others) on the 3DS. As such certain Pokemon will have fixed natures and so I've tried as best as possible to fit them into roles that make sense. This also means that there are certain Pokemon I can't get a hold of if they aren't obtainable (notably mythical Pokemon and some version exclusive legendaries). For fixed natures I'll put them in italics to show that this cant be changed (unless I somehow can get one in a trade). That being said I'm still very much seeking improvements for the team and I can always go out and catch alternative Pokemon if the team still isn't performing how I want.
The Team
Charizard-Mega-X @ Charizardite X
Ability: Tough Claws
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Flare Blitz
- Earthquake
- Dragon Claw
- Dragon Dance
This guy was originally a setup sweeper in my head but I found that I ended up using him to punch holes in things by just spamming flare blitz and then letting him die. I originally ran roost but found that I didn't get the chance to use it more so I put dragon claw in there to allow him to hit Zygarde harder as well as provide some neutral coverage. Dragon Dance is pretty much there for If i know theyre gonna switch to something and so I may as well set up. I'm actually open to changing this but I have one fully trained on my DS copy so am slightly reluctant to. He's an adamant nature because I bred him back in the day with perfect IVs and was well chuffed. If Jolly is definitely better then I'll go back and make a new one with Jolly nature. Regardless I've found that he does get a lot of value, in particular slamming through bulky grass types like tangrowth or tapu bulu as well as EQing tapu koko, all pokemon that greninja struggles with.
Magearna @ Shuca Berry
Ability: Soul-Heart
EVs: 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Focus Blast
- Ice Beam
- Flash Cannon
- Shift Gear
Magearna is my first sweeper and honestly I just love it. I originally had fleur cannon with fairium z but relinquished this to give heatran the z-move. Shuca berry however still allows her to tank earthquakes and then hit back with ice beam to KO (this catches tons of Landos and Zygardes off guard). Still considering switching ice beam back to fleur cannon regardless but I like it for now. Focus blast is nifty to hit kartana and ferrothorn with in case charizard isn't healthy enough. Flash cannon is great for other fairies and really good stab coverage for sweeping. I really really want thunderbolt in here but i just dont know where to make space for it. Timid lets it outspeed scarf kartana when boosted which is dope. Now a large part of me thinks that assault vest might be better for my team buuuuut she has to be timid so this makes the most sense.
Hi guys, been playing for a little bit and decided to make my own team. However while I've been testing this on showdown, the true purpose of this team is to play on the actual game against a friend of mine (as well as against others) on the 3DS. As such certain Pokemon will have fixed natures and so I've tried as best as possible to fit them into roles that make sense. This also means that there are certain Pokemon I can't get a hold of if they aren't obtainable (notably mythical Pokemon and some version exclusive legendaries). For fixed natures I'll put them in italics to show that this cant be changed (unless I somehow can get one in a trade). That being said I'm still very much seeking improvements for the team and I can always go out and catch alternative Pokemon if the team still isn't performing how I want.
The Team
Charizard-Mega-X @ Charizardite X
Ability: Tough Claws
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Flare Blitz
- Earthquake
- Dragon Claw
- Dragon Dance
This guy was originally a setup sweeper in my head but I found that I ended up using him to punch holes in things by just spamming flare blitz and then letting him die. I originally ran roost but found that I didn't get the chance to use it more so I put dragon claw in there to allow him to hit Zygarde harder as well as provide some neutral coverage. Dragon Dance is pretty much there for If i know theyre gonna switch to something and so I may as well set up. I'm actually open to changing this but I have one fully trained on my DS copy so am slightly reluctant to. He's an adamant nature because I bred him back in the day with perfect IVs and was well chuffed. If Jolly is definitely better then I'll go back and make a new one with Jolly nature. Regardless I've found that he does get a lot of value, in particular slamming through bulky grass types like tangrowth or tapu bulu as well as EQing tapu koko, all pokemon that greninja struggles with.
Magearna @ Shuca Berry
Ability: Soul-Heart
EVs: 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Focus Blast
- Ice Beam
- Flash Cannon
- Shift Gear
Magearna is my first sweeper and honestly I just love it. I originally had fleur cannon with fairium z but relinquished this to give heatran the z-move. Shuca berry however still allows her to tank earthquakes and then hit back with ice beam to KO (this catches tons of Landos and Zygardes off guard). Still considering switching ice beam back to fleur cannon regardless but I like it for now. Focus blast is nifty to hit kartana and ferrothorn with in case charizard isn't healthy enough. Flash cannon is great for other fairies and really good stab coverage for sweeping. I really really want thunderbolt in here but i just dont know where to make space for it. Timid lets it outspeed scarf kartana when boosted which is dope. Now a large part of me thinks that assault vest might be better for my team buuuuut she has to be timid so this makes the most sense.
Heatran @ Firium Z
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Magma Storm
- Taunt
- Earth Power
- Stealth Rock
This guy is my stealth rock setter since I moved lando away from that. He is also my dedicated toxapex trapper cos I hate that thing with a passion and I was really struggling to find room for thunderbolt on magearna. Magma storm hits like a truck and traps the poor souls, taunt is to stop recovery stuff and wall shenanigans. Earth power is to hit other heatrans as well as you know...toxapex. Timid was chosen because...I dont really have another choice but being able to outspeed other heatrans or at least tie is actually really nice. Firium Z is essentially to nuke things. Inferno Overdrive using magma storms base power is nuts and tends to spank things really hard even if resisted. I'm curious about switching this out to allow magearna to use the z-move instead but since I'm essentially locked into a fairly offensive heatran due to the nature I'm not entirely sure what else would make sense so I'm open to suggestions here.
Landorus-Therian @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Superpower
- Earthquake
- Defog
- U-turn
Landorus-Therian @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Superpower
- Earthquake
- Defog
- U-turn
Lando was originally my rock setter but since he was locked into an adamant nature I figured a scarf would be a much better use of his talents. Another good way to deal with toxapex which the rest of my team can't really do. As much as I reeeeaaaaally would love HP ice on this boi I can't. Its like big or ghost or something in the real game, big sad. nevertheless defog is great cos charizard gets slapped by those things. Earthquake hits like a truck and shouldnt need much explanation. Superpower has actually done pretty well to live up to the void of HP ice, allowing him to hit ferrothorn, chansey, kartana etc all really hard. U-turn is a great way of keeping momentum and scouting stuff.
Greninja-Ash @ Choice Specs
Ability: Battle Bond
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Hydro Pump
- Dark Pulse
- Water Shuriken
- Spikes
Greninja-Ash @ Choice Specs
Ability: Battle Bond
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Hydro Pump
- Dark Pulse
- Water Shuriken
- Spikes
Ever since I started using my main man Kermit I've fallen in love with him. Hydro pump and dark pulse alone are just nasty to watch and water shuriken means revenge killing is nice and easy (against lots of things I actually just hydro pump as 90% of the time they'll switch and I'll get a free boatload of damage, or i throw out some spikes and skedaddle). I actually lead with this guy quite a lot due to lando being all over the place and my own not having HP ice (altho I've been caught out by a few too many scarf u turns or explosions) and try to get battle bond activated early but after that I'm more careful and wait for charizard and co to get rid of his checks before letting him loose. I find he works fairly well as a sweeper alongside magearna as he can ruin any fire or ground types that might give her trouble and she can take care of the fairies.
Tapu Bulu @ Leftovers
Ability: Grassy Surge
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Def / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
- Swords Dance
- Horn Leech
- Superpower
- Synthesis
Ability: Grassy Surge
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Def / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
- Swords Dance
- Horn Leech
- Superpower
- Synthesis
Ok so this is the one I'm least sure on. It was originally a Tapu Koko as he was a good answer to toxapex, gave me an extra defog, and could slap greninja to boot. However there a few reasons I switched. First of all when i moved lando to a scarfer and brought in heatran I could handle toxapex much easier so it wasnt as much of a concern for me. Secondly I found tapu koko was so frail that I'd often be terrified to stay and defog with him and struggled to switch him in safely. So I switched to this beefy boi. The specially defensive set lets him handle greninja and I can switch him in much easier without having to worry about taknig a boatload of damage. He can also handle Zygarde which the rest of my team really struggles against (bar my weird magearna cheese). Anyways i'm on the fence about this guy so again very open to suggestions. About the actual set its the standard smogon one cos I haven't actually caught the guy yet but SpD lets him switch in to greninja which is scary for the rest of my team. SD is self explanatory he packs an absolute punch when boosted, have legit considered scarfing him sometimes. Horn Leech is nice for healing back up and helps with 1v1s. Superpower is great for slamming Heatran if I can predict the switch and shuts down a kartana as well (provided its locked into anything that isnt smart strike). Synthesis I dont actually use that much because he gets so much heal out of horn leech, leftovers and terrain that if i have a free turn Its often more pressuring to swords dance up so im considering adding some spice in here like stone edge or zen headbutt. Important note here is that this guys nature CAN CHANGE. I'm considering moving him to adamant and making him more offensive (this helps him win more vs zygarde garchomp and lando but he feels greninja a lot more) so as I said this is the one I'm most torn about and would love some advice.
Conclusion
So far the general game plan tends to work fairly well (punch holes/remove threats with charizard/heatran/lando and check things they struggle against with bulu then get either magearna or greninja setup to sweep) but there are a few issues I've encountered. Half of them are just me being bad and not keeping my checks to certain mons alive but things I struggle with in particular and volcorona, greninja, and a setup magearna. If volcorona switches in on magearna or bulu and gets a quiver dance going I tend to struggle to check it (should really just give bulu stone edge). Similarly if bulu dies or gets caught out by an ice beam greninja then i tend to struggle to stop it without it reaping significant damage. Once charizard is gone i also struggle a bit with magearna (this one isnt as common as if I see a magearna i take better care of him) but if they get a shift gear in there it can sometimes get ugly afterwards. Anyways sorry there's so much text but there was a lot to talk about! Thanks a bunch for any help it'd be really appreciated.
Conclusion
So far the general game plan tends to work fairly well (punch holes/remove threats with charizard/heatran/lando and check things they struggle against with bulu then get either magearna or greninja setup to sweep) but there are a few issues I've encountered. Half of them are just me being bad and not keeping my checks to certain mons alive but things I struggle with in particular and volcorona, greninja, and a setup magearna. If volcorona switches in on magearna or bulu and gets a quiver dance going I tend to struggle to check it (should really just give bulu stone edge). Similarly if bulu dies or gets caught out by an ice beam greninja then i tend to struggle to stop it without it reaping significant damage. Once charizard is gone i also struggle a bit with magearna (this one isnt as common as if I see a magearna i take better care of him) but if they get a shift gear in there it can sometimes get ugly afterwards. Anyways sorry there's so much text but there was a lot to talk about! Thanks a bunch for any help it'd be really appreciated.
