Team Toben

First Look -

Spoiler:

In Depth

• Trait: Regenerator
  
• 252 Atk | 4 SDef | 252 Spd
  
• Jolly Nature [+ Speed, - Special Attack]
  
• Moveset
  
  • Fake Out - Fake Out is a very standard move on lead/scout Mienshao, and help Lien break opposing sashes and even kill low-health opponents. It may not seem critical, but I can name a few matches when Fake Out with its incredible priority has saved my whole team. It's free damage, and although it's neither STAB nor high powered, with 125 attack and LO, it does do something. However, I often opt not to use it mid-game on pokemon 0hko'd by another move, as even 4x resisted on a switch HJK will do more than this will.
    
  • Hi Jump Kick - Standard move on Mienshao with incredible base power off of Mienshao's incredible attack. It's a bummer when it misses, but I'll never run drain punch's 75 base power even when it heals. Also, I don't have ghosts switch in too much as I tend to spam U-turn a lot.
    
  • Stone Edge - Another standard move that is used for coverage against foes such as Zapdos, psychics, and everything that resists fighting. To put Mienshao's power into perspective, stone edge on offensive Zapdos 0hko's 90% of the time without SR or fake out.
    
  • U-turn - The spammy switch out move we all love to hate. Mienshao's best move against slowbro, and a great move to gain momentum.

• Why This Pokémon?
  
  Lien is fast, powerful, and has an amazing ability in Regenerator, meaning every time she switches she gets a third of her health back, amazing for healing recoil and very convenient with the use of U-turn. More importantly, she is my only powerful non-choicer, and has more flexibility and better match-ups than most of my pokes.

• EVs, Nature, and Item
  Standard offensive pokemon spread to maximize damage and speed, and make download users get a Attack boost, though I'm considering putting 24 EVs into defense to survive Flygon's outrage in messy scenarios. Jolly for max speed, and Life Orb for additional damage that is conveniently healed by Regenerator.
  

• Trait: Magic Bounce
  
• 252 HP | 252 Def | 4 SpD
  
• Impish Nature [+ Defense, - Special Attack]
  
• Moveset
  
  • U-Turn - All of my pokemon pack some variant of this move, which is incredibly useful for scouting the switch-in. It's very weak because of the lack of investment, but the purpose is to switch, not rack up damage. Great when I come in on a pokemon that relies on status to do damage and tries to flee.
    
  • Roost - Excellent healing move that restores 50% of my health in one turn, and also removes my flying weakness. With this, Prophet can stall out weak ice beams, stone edge, and thunderbolts after ensuring their slowness with twave. However, it's often best to switch to Maya in these cases.
    
  • Night Shade - Due to the lack of investment and Xatu's poor offensive stats, Night Shade is Xatu's main method of dealing reliable damage. Psychic is not used because it doesn't to very much damage anyways, and Xatu is usually pitted against defensive steel-types; the ones that use SR.
    
  • Thunder Wave - I use Twave to cripple zippy pokemon on the switch or to set up for a kill to one of my powerhouses. Also, slows down opponenst so I can roost and avoid SE hits on ice/elec moves.

• Why This Pokémon?
  
  I have absolutely no spinner or stall-stopper, meaning that Prophet is incredibly invaluable in those ways. I also don't have a SR user, meaning that a predicted magic coat bounce is the only way I can get SR on my opponent's side and keep it off my own. Also, prophet has a very slow U-turn which is useful to get one of my sweepers in safely.

• EVs, Nature, and Item
  Although the standard Xatu invests in Special Defense, Prophet is physically defensive to take as much of an advantage as possible of his 4x resistance to fighting, especially as most stealth rock users are physically based. Leftovers are used to add to Xatu's bulk.
  

• Trait: Sheer Force
  
• 252 Attack | 252 Speed | 4 SpD
  
• Adamant Nature [+ Attack, - Special Attack]
  
• Moveset
  
  • U-Turn - Weapon of choice against slowbro, and used to gain momentum.
    
  • Flare Blitz - 120 base power, positive-natured, boosted by Sheer force, STAB’d, and on a 140 base attack stat? Even with no boosting item, Flare Blitz is pure destruction. As a show of strength, Gliscor is always 2hko’d by Flare Blitz, even with toxic heal!
    
  • Earthquake - Earthquake is secondary coverage, and is used for pokemon like Arcanine. However, I find that I’ve never used it much at all, as I prefer to U-turn out of Arcanine, and rock types are hit harder by superpower anyways. Though gimmicky, I am considering using encore in this slot to stop Honchkrow from walking over my team.
    
  • Superpower – Superpower is used for coverage with Flare Blitz, smacking snorlax, porygon, and rock-types harder than Earthquake and Flare Blitz can.

• Why This Pokémon?
  
  Toben is my main powerhouse with his massive fieldclearing Flare Blitz, which punches large holes in opponents mid-game. He defeats the grass types that give Lanturn trouble, while luring in bulky waters only to U-turn to Rotom-C, who can hurt the opponent even more with Specs Vswitch. Even resistors, such as Flygon, are 2hko’d by Flare Blitz. Toben also acts as an offensive pivot, forcing pokemon to switch out only to U-turn and gain momentum. When crazy ape comes aboard, people better duck!

• EVs, Nature, and Item
  The EVs are standard offensive spread to maximize damage and speed. Choice scarf is used to outspeed pokemon such as heracross, and works very well with U-turn and Toben’s huge attack stat. Toben was formerly LO’d but the lack of speed was often disappointing, leading me to slap a scarf on him.

• Trait: Levitate
  
• 252 SpA | 4 SDef | 252 Speed
  
• Modest Nature [+ Special Attack, - Attack]
  
• Moveset
  
  • Volt Switch - All of my pokemon pack some variant of this move, which is incredibly useful for scouting the switch in. Volt Switch is incredibly useful for tearing apart opponents with Slowbro, Milotic, or any bulky water apart. My opponents then have the option of staying in and having their pokemon and ability to stop my physical attackers dismantled, or switching to a new pokemon. If they switch to a new pokemon, then it must take a STAB volt switch off of a 509 base SpA, and then, contend with the next switch in to counter that pokemon, allowing me to regain momentum.
    
  • Leaf Storm – Standard ridiculously powered STAB that is used when the opponent has no resists. Leaf Storm is actually almost as strong as Latios’s Draco Meteor. Another benefit of Leaf Storm is that ground-type opponents become leery of coming in on volt switch in feat of this move.
    
  • Hidden Power Ice - HP ice is used for neutral coverage alongside Voltswitch and LeafStorm, and hits grass types, most notably shaymin and tangrowth. I also use HP ice to finish off low-health opponents when the opponent has a ground-type in the wings.
    
  • Trick – Trick is the move I use for defensive pokemon such as Porygon2 and Clefable, or, when I’m feeling up for a risk, before set-up sweepers to lock them into a boosting move. I can then volt-switch out as the opponent rescues their set-up sweeper to a new counter to the incoming pokemon.

• Why This Pokémon?
  
  Rotom-C defeats the bulky waters and physical walls my other team members have issues with, and provides another way of bypassing bulky waters should Lanturn fall early in battle. Also, C-Motor has excellent synergy with the team, as part of a FGW core and Volt Switch-er alongside my many U-turn users. Rotom functions as a midgame wallbreaker and go-to for rocks and rhyperior.

• EVs, Nature, and Item
  C-Motor began his journey as a fast revenge killer, timid with a choice scarf back in the day when I still carried Azelf. When Flygon was added to this team, I decided that I had plenty of speed in my team, and 3 scarfers was overkill. Also, I decided that most of my targets were slow, bulky pokemon such as rhyperior. Modest is to ensure Max power without lowering defense, and a specs is to turn Rotom into an offensive juggernaut. A special note is to change the IVs to max speed and lower defense and attack, which beats out all other Rotom-C’s that forget.
  

• Trait: Volt Absorb
  
• 52 HP | 252 Def | 204 SpA
  
• Calm Nature [+ Special Attack, - Attack]
  
• Moveset
  
  • Volt Switch - All of my pokemon pack some variant of this move, which is incredibly useful for scouting the switch in. Volt Switch is excellent for scouting the switch in when I wall the opposition completely such as in situations against Zapdos, Raikou, or Blastoise/Bulky water, and allows Maya to function as a defensive pivot and regain momentum with a slow volt switch out.
    
  • Scald – Secondary STAB with nice burn chance for catching physical attackers on the switch. Even with no investment, it still 2hko’s common threats such as steelix, rhyperior, and arcanine.
    
  • Thunderbolt - It might seem very odd to have both Volt Switch and Thunderbolt in the same set, but it has been useful in situations when Maya does not want to switch out, such as versus Slowbro and Honckrow. Slowbro is mentioned especially because I do not want Maya to be forced to switch out and subject one of my other pokemon to scald or psychic, as volt switch only does about 48% to standard defensive Bro. It is also much stronger than Volt Switch is, and is Maya’s strongest move with this set.
    
  • Heal Bell – Heal Bell allows lanturn to function as a cleric, turning ice beam freeze from gamechanging hax to annoyance and preventing thunderwave from ruining mienshao entirely. In Lanturn v lanturn situations, the one with heal bell wins, and I want Maya to come out on top when faced with another one of her kind. Heal Bell also allows me to use one of my pokemon as a sleep absorber early game, and then prevent them from being dead weight once lilligant/amoonguss has been eliminated.

• Why This Pokémon?
  
  Maya is a superb special tank and defensive pivot, helping me with bulky waters and special attackers with her almost-exclusive resistance to BoltBeam. Maya also completes the FGW core. However, in situations necessitating for me to sacrifice a pokemon, it is usually either C-Motor or Maya who goes, as they both block similar pokemon from running over my team. Maya also is also tied with Xatu for having the least KO’s per match, but her excellent defensive typing makes her worth a team slot, along with her key resistances to ice and fire. And besides, Lanturn is just soo cute

• EVs, Nature, and Item
  Maya has the standard smogon EV spread to hit a leftovers number, prevent night shade from 4hkoing, take maximum physical damage, and still have the ability to tank essentially any special move. A calm nature is used as Lanturn is a special tank, as Xatu is usually called out to deal with physical threats.
  

• Trait: Levitate
  
• 252 Attack | 4 SDef | 252 Speed
  
• Jolly [+ Speed, - Special Attack]
  
• Moveset
  
  • U-turn – U-turn is used to gain momentum in the middle of the match, and also scouts the switch-in when the opponent tries to escape an earthquake. U-turn is excellent for luring a pokemon such as slowbro, and then switching out to Rotom-C or lanturn. U-turn also allows me to play prediction games
    
  • Earthquake – One of Sandra’s fantastic two STABs. Deals terrific damage due to its high base power with no negative sideffect, and hits many pokemon in UU super-effectively. Has excellent coverage with Outrage, as everything that resists outrage bar bronzing is hit at least neutrally by Earthquake.
    
  • Outrage - Outrage’s high base power lets it have the ability to take a large chunk out of anything that doesn’t resist it. I often spam it late game due to its ability to 2hko a huge portion of UU. However, I have to be extraordinarily careful with outrage due to its “locking in” effect, so I try not to KO an opponent with it mid-game if there is a steel pokemon still left in the opponent’s party. Also, a glitch in PS causes outrage to always hit three times, which is a boon in some situations, but often leads to an opposing cobalion coming in, subbing, and SD’ing up.
    
  • Fire Punch / Toxic – The fourth slot is mostly filler, but fire punch does have some utility in hitting Escavalier. However, I haven’t seen Escavalier very much, and EQ hits everything fire punch is 2x against just as hard. Also, Fire Punch doesn’t do too much to Bronzong despite its double-effectiveness, and grass types are hit almost as hard by U-turn. However, Fire Punch nails heracross effectively mid-game when I don't want to use outrage in fear of a 3-turn lock in. Toxic is in the last slot for hitting Slowbro, Suicune, Gligar, and bulky waters on the switch, but most of the time I’m better off U-turning out.

• Why This Pokémon?
  
  Why is this question even asked? Flygon is simply the most awesome pokemon ever created. Nuff said (Flygon is the best scarfer in the tier, speed-ties and defeats Victini, counters heracross, outspeeds Darmanitian and all other reasonable scarfers, most of which are a major threat to my team)

• EVs, Nature, and Item
  Standard offensive spread to maximize speed and damage potential, with the remaining EVs placed in SpD to prevent downloaders from raising their special attack.
  

Flash wrote:An extremely solid team, but I have one question.

Have you ever tried like Landorus in place of Mienshao?


Mienshao is really weak to hax which is why ONLY reason why I never use it, and just use Landorus instead as an anti-lead.

Lynjabear wrote:

Flash wrote:An extremely solid team, but I have one question.

Have you ever tried like Landorus in place of Mienshao?


Mienshao is really weak to hax which is why ONLY reason why I never use it, and just use Landorus instead as an anti-lead.

Uh, this is UU. Isn't Landorus OU?

Hello everyone! Today, I bring you my most recent UU team.

Lynjabear wrote:Evidence that people didn't read it -

Hello everyone! Today, I bring you my most recent UU team.

First sentence...

Flash wrote:I thought Mienshao was OU? Hmm. Must be wrong.

Evan wrote:Gligar is a defensive beast .-. I usually run Toxic over U-Turn. Taunt also does well.

Other than that, solid team.