My PCL team

[Megan]

Now that the PCL Championships are pretty much over, I figured, I might as well post my team and ask for advice on how I can (or have to) improve it.

The complete team:

The team in detail:

Celebi @ Leftovers
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 HP / 148 Def / 108 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Recover
- Baton Pass
- Giga Drain
- Substitute

My starting Pokemon; it functions as a Status Absorber and a defensive mon that can stop M-Punny and the likes, while also working as a Pivot without risking being trapped by Bisharps Pursuit/Sucker Punch. Sub+BP also me to switch, on a defensive mon, into Gyarados in order to set up and attempt a sweep.

Heatran @ Air Balloon
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Fire Blast
- Earth Power
- Flash Cannon
- Stealth Rock

Heatran is the second member of my core. I chose a more offensive route in order to not only provide SR support, but also so I have something, I can hit Fairies with. Fire Blast also hits Megagross, although it's still slower, which is why T-Wave, or a hit on a switchin is pretty much neccessary (or an intakt Air Balloon).

I've considered Scarf and a defensive version of this set as well, but in that case, I'd either lose out on SR, or a way to beat Fairies, reliably.

Gyarados @ Gyaradosite
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Waterfall
- Crunch
- Ice Fang

Gyarados is my main win condition. It allows for Intimidate support pre-mevo, while its mega brings in resistances to Dark/Ghost, to finish the core, while also being able to set up freely on Bisharp, which is otherwise a hugh nuisance to my team.

There's really not that much else to say about it, as it's pretty much just an offense M-Gyarados set.

Latios @ Life Orb
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Draco Meteor
- Psyshock
- Surf
- Defog

Latios is my Defogger. There's not much to say about it, except that I run Surf on it, so it doesn't get completely walled by Heatran. I'm not quite sure, though, if I should keep it, as Gyarados itself can handle heatran as well.

Another thing is, that it speed ties with Gengar, another mon that threatens my team.

Clefable @ Leftovers
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 172 Def / 84 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Calm Mind
- Moonblast
- Moonlight
- Flamethrower

[description needs to be reworked]

I originally tried Wish, which didn't work out for me too well and since Soft-Boiled is illegal on Unaware Clefable, Moonlight was my only other option. As for Flamethrower, I chose it in order two catch Steel types on the switchin (metagross, Scizor).

Thundurus @ Life Orb
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Thunderbolt
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Focus Blast
- Thunder Wave

Originally only used as a placeholder, I soon had to realize, that my team has a couple problems:
- Gengar hitting pretty much everything on my team really hard
- lack of speed/priority

Thundurus' 111 Speed allows it to outrun all base 110 mon, including Gengar, which gets OHKO'd by hunderbolt, after SR damage, which works well against Pokemon like Heatran/Ferrothorn (two mons that my sweepers want to be removed) and Kyurem-B.
T-Wave on the other hand makes up for a lot of my speed issues, especially in case of Heatran and unboosted Gyarados.



Threats:

- LO Gengar is still pretty frightening as Thundurus can't always switch into it and Latios getting a Speed tie
- speedy Ground types (e.g. Sand Rush Excadrill) are immune to T-Wave
- I also don't have any way to disrupt opposing momentum gaining

Also, my appologies in advance, if there's something wrong/missing. Not really the easiest task to figure out if something really is a threat, or if I just screwed up ^^"

 

[Anti]

For teaching yourself everything, this is a very strong effort. Nice job!

You mentioned momentum, and Manectric does strike me as an issue. If you want to have some relief against VoltTurn cores, I would suggest changing Unaware Clefable to Magic Guard and the EVs to 252 HP / 172 Def / 84 SpD @ Calm Nature. Magic Guard's utility is in allowing you to bypass hazards damage, which will relieve a lot of pressure. Also, the Special Defense is very helpful against Kyurem-Black (who you are very weak to) and Mega Diancie.

Celebi strikes me as the weak link here, not because what it does isn't useful, but just because a lot of its defensive utility overlaps with Clefable and Latios and its role seems like more of a luxury than a necessity. Whether you actually want to is up to you though.

You might consider Focus Blast on Thundurus over Knock Off to get a stronger hit on Heatran and Ferrothorn (who your respective win conditions would love to have weakened) and also to not invite the extremely dangerous Kyurem-Black into the match. Knock Off is still fine, though Thunderbolt is usually sufficient against Gengar, but you might test that out.

 

[PlatinumDude]

Why no Crunch on Mega Gyarados? True, Slowbro can be taken care of by Thundurus, but sometimes Thundurus may not be available to do that. Crunch also hits opposing Celebi harder than Ice Fang would. Any one of Gyarados' offensive moves can be dropped for Crunch.

 

[Megan]

You mentioned momentum, and Manectric does strike me as an issue. If you want to have some relief against VoltTurn cores, I would suggest changing Unaware Clefable to Magic Guard and the EVs to 252 HP / 172 Def / 84 SpD @ Calm Nature. Magic Guard's utility is in allowing you to bypass hazards damage, which will relieve a lot of pressure. Also, the Special Defense is very helpful against Kyurem-Black (who you are very weak to) and Mega Diancie.

I was actually thinking on whether I should switch to a Magic Guard set, especially because Clefable got worn down really easily. Problem was, that in that case, it and Celebi would do a lot of similar things. I decided to change it to the Magic Guard set, regardless, because:

Celebi strikes me as the weak link here, not because what it does isn't useful, but just because a lot of its defensive utility overlaps with Clefable and Latios and its role seems like more of a luxury than a necessity. Whether you actually want to is up to you though.

It is kind of sad, when the Pokemon, you had in mind, while building the team, isn't really that well integrated. But since I don't want to completely restructure the team for the time being, I wonder, what options I'd get by removing it. Things, that come to my mind would include:
- something that stops opposing momentum
- something that has some priority/offensive pressure/momentum
- something that can stop opposing sweeps, especially since Clefable doesn't have Unaware anymore (or maybe Thundurus' Thunder Wave+Gyarados' Intimidate are enough?)

Hints apprechiated, but explicit mentions of certain Pokemon not neccessary :)

You might consider Focus Blast on Thundurus over Knock Off to get a stronger hit on Heatran and Ferrothorn (who your respective win conditions would love to have weakened) and also to not invite the extremely dangerous Kyurem-Black into the match. Knock Off is still fine, though Thunderbolt is usually sufficient against Gengar, but you might test that out.

252 SpA Life Orb Thundurus Thunderbolt vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Gengar: 235-278 (90.7 - 107.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock

I really should start including SR into the calcs, that can potentially avoid a lot of trouble. At least it shows, how important these things are. <_<

I've changed Thundurus from Naive to Timid and switched to Focus Blast for the time being.

Why no Crunch on Mega Gyarados? True, Slowbro can be taken care of by Thundurus, but sometimes Thundurus may not be available to do that. Crunch also hits opposing Celebi harder than Ice Fang would. Any one of Gyarados' offensive moves can be dropped for Crunch.

I like to keep Waterfall as its main STAB, so...Earthquake hits Electric types and Megagross hard. Although Clefable can take on Electric types decently well and Crunch hits Megagross hard, as well.
As for Ice Fang, the most noteworthy Pokemon, that I can think of, are Mega Venusaur (which Latios can handle) and Garchomp (which Clefable and/or Latios can handle). On the other hand, Ice Fang doesn't deal substantially more damage to Mega Venusaur than Crunch does, so I'm more lenient to replace Ice Fang with Crunch.


I'd really like to hear, if there's still a lot of other things that need to be addressed, or if there are new mistakes, etc.