Salamander's Inferno

[Silent Storm]

Saying it now: this is a c+p from smogon, was hoping to get a rate as I changed some things in the team but the guys that usually rate my stuff didn't have time to, so I am posting it here lol.

And a lot of this is gibberish, been meaning to clean it up but I have had college work and stuff.

Salamander's Inferno


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Change-Log

• The team has received a massive overhaul.
  
• Changed the spread for Latias and am currently testing Thunderbolt.
• Trying a new Heatran set, considering Will-O-Wisp over Taunt.
  
• Changed the spread for Bulky Mence.
  
• Fire Blast is now being considered over Magma Storm
  
• Iron Head is now on Jirachi to help handle the big three better, helps with Latias now.
• Testing new moves and spreads.
  

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Introduction

Gonna be honest, I didn't plan on revisiting this team cause it honestly flopped for me. Vashta once said that this team was special hyper offence gone wrong among others things. The team itself is pretty generic, considering my attempts at being innovative. The team works in dealing with most of the threats in the current game and Bulky Mence imo is better suited for this team. If all else fails I still have Latias to pick apart everything once Blissey dies, though the amount of special attacker is annoying for me as I like having a balance. If I were to change one member it would be Latias, not because its "cheap" or "gay" or "spammy" but its because I have spammed her on almost all my teams and its getting quite annoying, also not sure about cune either. Right now this is my main team as it has the most win records to date (been playing with it the most lol) and has a lot of my favs in it (I have a lot of favs :¬/).

Main issues I have encountered:

• Once Jirachi is gone the team is rather slow, but I guess being bulky is a good trade off.
• The big three rip this team to shreads once Jirachi is gone.
• Not liking Latias on this team too much, despite it being good I have spammed it to death. =/
• Too much special attackers, and Suicune takes too long to set up. =/

Main highlights of the team:

• The team has a lot of resistances, does not care about Stealth Rock.
• This team consists of various favourites of mine while trying to use not so common sets.
• The team owns now. =)

Other notes (Misc):

• Salamence being bulky helps deal with stall better (as the old set died too fast).
• Every single player on this team does not mind toxic spikes, only Suicune minds but it can rest it off, huge plus against stall teams
• So far the core is three steels and two dragons, as I already have a triple dragon team I am considering getting rid of Latias or something else and keeping the main core three steels and one dragon.

In-Depth Look

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A Human FireBall (Heatran) @ Shuca Berry
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 6 HP | 252 SAtk | 252 Spe
Nature: Timid (+Spe, -Atk)

• - Will-O-Wisp
• - Earth Power
• - Fire Blast
• - Stealth Rock

Set Analysis

Heatran is a pretty cool lead when it comes to being able to do something to the majority of leads out there. With his useful resistances he has no issues setting up rocks. The set is borrowed from YoshiThePirate and Philip and has been very successful for me. Magma Storm deals with the likes of Azelf once they taunt my lead or something while Taunt lures Gyarados in for him to be useless as he can't set up, slower leads also fall prey to Heatran's set as taunt stops their stealth rock which is huge for Salamence even though he has roost. What lured me to Heatran over Metagross in this build was the amount of resists he has. Heatran having Flash Fire is huge when I have three steel types, all of which are weak to fire, and when coupled with Magnezone and Salamence, not a lot of Pokemon are touching me any time soon. Looking at the team, I have two Pokemon weak to fire and ground, wile Salamence and Latias cover those weaknesses very well, they won't last long. At the very least, Heatran covers the fire weakness while covering physical attackers from Will-O-Wisp Pokemon like Dusknoir and Rotom-h.

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YourMum (Suicune) @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 120 HP | 172 SAtk | 216 Spe
Nature: Timid (+Spe, -Atk)

• - Surf
• - Calm Mind
• - Hidden Power [Electric]
  
• - Ice Beam

Set Analysis

Crocune, the pokemon that was in my old build has made his return to my team as being the bulky water to compliment my core and handle Blissey. To be honest, I would prefer it if something else be here but I just prefer Crocune as its has been very successful for me and is a pain to get rid of once Vaporeon is outta the way. I had Rotom-h over this but the forum I normally frequent banned him for some insane reason, so I sometimes interchange them. Standard offensive cune was also used as it provided me with more coverage but sr among other thins made me go cro. Me and Skynet have been experimenting with other cune sets as Crocune is just too annoying to use. on Skynet's version of team he has been using offensive Suicune over Crocune. In my opinion, I believe this offensive cune with leftovers is more suited for the team than Crocune. As I mentioned before, despite being immune to status I hate setting with crocune, its tedious and the coverage is horrible. The only problem I would have with the switch to this set is the fact that toxic spikes dicks him over, but the trade off imo is worth it, as I am hitting things I normally wouldn't be able to hit with Crocune.

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Crimson Ninja (Jirachi) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Serene Grace
EVs: 6 HP | 252 Atk | 252 Spe
Nature: Jolly (+Atk, -SAtk)

• - Ice Punch
• - Iron Head
• - Trick
• - Thunderpunch

Set Analysis

Choice Scarf Jirachi has been placed over Scizor as being the pokemon to handle dragons as well as Gyarados. I orginally had CB Scizor in this spot for scouting and handling Salamence but CS Rachi just did the job better than cor at what I want to accomplish. While Zen Headbutt could be enough for Blissey and co I have decided to add Trick to the set to further screw up stuff that could potentially wall me. Jirachi acts as my fail safe Pokemon against the big three, Tyranitar, Salamence & Gyarados as all three can rip me to shreads if I don't have rachi. Rachi, like Heatran, has a nice amount of resists and immunity to toxic spikes meaning he also won't be leaving any time soon.

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Under the same sky <3 (Latias) @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 148 HP | 108 SAtk | 252 Spe
Nature: Timid (+SAtk, -Atk)

• - Calm Mind
• - Surf
• - Recover
• - Dragon Pulse

Set Analysis

CM Latias makes her way onto my team as being the first boss monster once Blissey has been taken out of the game. After one CM boost Scizor and friends are gonna have a hard time coming in on +1 surfs and dragon pulse gives me good stab to screw over Salamence among other dragons lacking a speed boost. To be honest I tried avoiding Latias as I have already used Salamence, Heatran, Scizor and Latias on the same team, unfortunately this Latias has helped me a ton in getting nape and is overall a great Pokemon with nice synergy with the rest of my team. LO+3 attacks has been used in the past and while good was either too slow or too weak to do anything significant without spikes support.

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An Ugly son of a : ¬ | =( (Magnezone) @ Leftovers
Ability: Magnet Pull
EVs: 42 HP | 252 SAtk | 216 Spe
Nature: Naive (+Spe, -SDef)

• - Thunderbolt
• - Substitute
• - Hidden Power [Grass]
• - Explosion

Set Analysis

Magnezone is Salamence's main supporting partner for this team. Scizor is a mjaor threat to Salamence's sweeping power and having him removed from the game rather easily is HUGE. Magnezone not only supports Salamence but can potentially support Latias by exploding on Blisseys and Snorlaxes that are major threats to Latias's sweeping power. As many people expect Magnezone to hold scarf they stick shed shell on their steel types then switch into something that can take thunderbolt or hidden power fire, because of this I felt it better I run substitute giving me a shield against whatever comes while I recover off any damage from stealth rock with leftovers. I feel HP Grass is out of place here as I already have a steel type that can hit Swampert with it so I interchange with hp fire, while both have their merits I have been finding HP Grass to be better as some people save Swampert of cursing rather than leading and not much on my team can hit pert if Heatran dies.

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Dragon Caesar >=) (Salamence) @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 214 HP | 40 Atk | 176 Def | 80 Spe
Nature: Jolly (+Spe, -SAtk)

• - Dragon Claw
• - Roost
• - Earthquake
• - Dragon Dance

Set Analysis

I was originally using the bulky spread from the analysis but I saw a new spread in a rmt so I decided to try this out and I was pleased with the results (credits or course go to Philip and Yoshi). Bulky Mence has got be one of the best sets I have used. While he doesn't have the coverage of MixMence and DD Mence, he can take hits, has similar coverage, can lure in steel types and stuff them over thanks to Dragon Claw and Roost and not care about status at all. This is a slight variantion of the set that can be found on the analysis. In my opinion what made me not like bulkymence was the fact that it focused too much on hp and def, with this set all the evs have been nicely distributed plus the evs in attack and speed has made me

General Strategy

While I haven't used this team as much as I should I have a pretty rough idea on how it works in battle. The game starts out with Heatran either launching Magma Storm on lead Zelf or Taunting slower leads before using Stealth Rock. Because of his bulk and access to Shuca Berry I am pretty confident that he can withstand a hit from virtually common leads not named Swampert and atleast get rocks up for my pokemon to abuse. After rocks is up and Heatran is still alive I switch him out as saving him for incoming Gyarados and friends is nice if I have Will-O-Wisp (if not I switch out anyway). Once Heatran is safely out of the way I, most of the time, switch into to Latias and attempt an early sweep, hopefully luring their dedicated special wall out so I can either smash it with Thunderbolt or switch into to Suicune and stall it out with resttalk. As I stated before, Gyarados, Salamence and Tyranitar, to me considered the big three can all have their way with my team and rape it, which is where Jirachi comes in. Jirachi with Thunderpunch, Ice Punch and Iron Head hit all of these threats for super effective damage and can haxstall Salamence with Iron Head, in a way, it is set up bait for them but that doesn't matter as he can just come in and take them out if they are standard (bulky for Gyarados, Naughty for Salamence etc, don't know how well I am screwed by naive and max speed mence and gyara).

The crux of this team has got to be the MagnaMence combo. In the first build, SalaTran was used over this combo because I felt magnezone was too slow to help this team significantly, further testing proved that Heatran was better suited for the role of leading and setting up rocks while Magnezone can trap and defeat steel types easier than anything. Mid way into the game I attempt to lure out their steel types with Jirachi and Latias for Magnezone to kill. Salamence being bulky does nto really care about these pokemon as he can set up on then and use Earthquake to kill the weak ones but at the end of the day, its always better to rape them indefinably with a member that not only compliments mence offensive, but can do the job he can easier leaving Mence to set up and ram through the opposing team (plus Salamence loses to Bronzong and Skarmory). I send in Salamence when a good half of the opposing team is battered or weakened, with his bulk and intimidate he should have no issues setting up with multiple dances and running through the team with claw and quake, using roost as a form of recovery.

(Hopefully I removed all the swearing lol).

[Dark Azelf]

Earth Power > Quake on Tran. =p

Ill come back later for a better rate, since im pretty tired now.

[Silent Storm]

I noticed a good portion of this team is destroyed by Lati-Zone (Rachi can't do much to the combo). Anything else I forgot to take into account and I'm not sure about Suicune, Rachi and a the set for Latias and Salamence. >_<

[Pokedra]

The team looks very solid overall, I only have a few nitpicks.

Firstly I'd run 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe on your Scarf Rachi, this allows you to at least tie with +1 Naive DDMence and also beats other Scarfed 100's who only run 176 EV's (ScarfGon, other ScarfRachi,etc).

Personally I think Surf is much better then Thunderbolt on Latias, it allows you to smack Ttar hard and generally hits what TBolt hits. Most bulky waters don't give Latias trouble anyways.

One problem is that with Jirachi gone you are suspectible to stuff like DDGyara and DDMence(though you could bait it into Outrage and go to Magenzone maybe). I think you could try making Cune CM + 3 Attacks. This way he can serve as a reasonable check to them.

Suicune @ Leftovers
Nature : Bold
EV : 252 HP / 240 Def / 16 Spe
- Surf
- Ice Beam
- HP [Electric]
- Calm Mind

Loses recovery for coverage, you could try a more offensive spread if you liked. 16 Spe EV's outpace STalker Rotom-A.

However if you do opt for that choice I'd also consider Explosion on Tran and a Naive nature. This way you can trap Blissey or anything that gives you significant problems and blow up on it making life easier for Latias/Suicune.

Great team, good luck with it.

[Skip Shot]

Expanding on what Pokedra said, here is a good spread that mixes Suicune's bulk with its offensive capabilities quite well: Timid Nature, 120 HP/ 172 Spa/ 216 Spe. This still hits hard and outspeeds the stuff it should outspeed.

[Sebastien Loeb]

I don't see well covered the weakness to Groud, Tyranitar Dragon Dancer does very bad to your team.

[Silent Storm]

@Pokedra: You bring up some good points on Jirachi, Latias and Suicune. I have been meaning to use a cune that can hit more things but I was worried about it dying to quickly, I might go with Skip Shot's spread and nature over yours though.

@Sebastien Loeb: Not really. While I have 3 pokemon weak to ground, I have Latias & Salamence who both resist it, have bulky spreads & can heal off damage with Recover & Roost, while DDtar is handled by Jirachi. =/

(Still waiting for Dark Azelf's rate :[).

[Sebastien Loeb]

Latias is not a colossus of defense physical, Salamence it is weak of 25% to Stealth Rock.

[Silent Storm]

Yes, I know Latias is not best suited for physical walling AND I know Salamence is weak to rocks but Mence does not care about stealth rock as he can heal off its damage with roost and is running a bulky set. I don't even switch Latias into physical attacks but that doesn't mean she can't switch into popular ground attacks like Earthquake (which is really the only ground attack I fear atm). =/

Stop posting in my thread please, as none of what you said has actually helped me.