Team Improvement

[LoyalTraitor]

Hey everyone I'm new to competitive battling and I'm Looking to improve my team. I need a final pokemon that i can't seem to decide on
I've bred them all competitive with good natures and ev trained accordingly. If you need more details to help assist ill add to it as requested.
My questions are
1. Is this a decent team (So Far)?
2. What should my final pokemon be?
3. Are there other pokemon I should consider to replace my current?
4. Any tweaks I should make? ie. Strategy, pokemon, etc

Note: I would prefer my final pokemon to not be an over used pokemon. I know I am using common pokemon here but from the battles ive done i havent seen any of these being used. I was going to use mawile to make use of the high attack and deal damage to the team and baton pass off to my final attacker but i feel its over used.

My team currently is as follows,

Forretress
Toxic Spikes
Spikes
Rapid Spin
Stealth Rocks

Drifblim
Minimize
Stockpile
Thunderbolt
Baton Pass

Smeargle
Spore
Belly Drum
Sticky Web
Baton Pass

Shuckle
Rest
Swagger
Infestation
Bide

MewTwo
Recover
Stone edge
Earthquake
Giga Impact

I know that mewtwo needs better moves and I'm working on tracking down TMs I also plan on making a better attacker. As of right now my strategy goes as such

Forretress sets traps and rapid spins if he survives setting all layers I switch him out to keep him incase the team has a rapid spinner

Next I follow with with Drifblim and start off with a minimize followed by a stockpile then finish off with minimize and get to highest stockpile before baton passing to

Smeargle who spores belly drum and baton passes to mewtwo (X)

Shuckle I use when i foresee issues that could kill my smeargle or threats
Ill switch him in and throw infestation up to trap a troublesome pokemon followed by swagger and bide and rest as needed. I will also use him as a stall if needed repeating swagger and infestation and killing following pokemon with bide.

Thanks for all the help in advance!

 

[PlatinumDude]

What tier are you playing in? If you're playing by Smogon tiers, this team will be Ubers by default because of Mewtwo's presence. Most of you other Pokemon in the team will fail in that tier because of their subpar stats. You don't need to dedicate the entire team to Baton Passing boosts to Mewtwo because Mewtwo is already very strong on its own, regardless of form.

 

[ShanWow]

Your team gets destroyed by Taunt, way too many utility moves.

 

[LoyalTraitor]

What tier are you playing in? If you're playing by Smogon tiers, this team will be Ubers by default because of Mewtwo's presence. Most of you other Pokemon in the team will fail in that tier because of their subpar stats. You don't need to dedicate the entire team to Baton Passing boosts to Mewtwo because Mewtwo is already very strong on its own, regardless of form.

Which is why I'm looking for a 6th pokemon to help improve my team and mentioned i wanted to get away from mewtwo . I just looked at the tier list, I would prefer not to have any Ubers.

I like the baton pass concept I mean ive even won battles with only smeargle baton passing along his belly drum to mewtwo. Do you have any recommendations for replacements i can use for my team?

 

[tokyodrift]

Are you primarily going for a stall tactic here? Like someone has said above, Taunt really shuts you down. And having Mewtwo present automatically makes your team in the Ubers tier according to Smogon rules. I understand you've bred these Pokemon specifically for this team, but you'd want a nice balance of power and support.

What tier are you looking to play in?

 

[LoyalTraitor]

Are you primarily going for a stall tactic here? Like someone has said above, Taunt really shuts you down. And having Mewtwo present automatically makes your team in the Ubers tier according to Smogon rules. I understand you've bred these Pokemon specifically for this team, but you'd want a nice balance of power and support.

What tier are you looking to play in?

I would like a trap set up, deal some big hits and stall say the last 2-3 of the team if need be
For this I may switch out mewtwo for Marowak with a thick club using evasive from my drifblum and his stockpile he can avoid being knocked out for a few turns.

As of right now i would like to stay below uber I have not yet gone competive just friends and passerbys (Some really good passerbys lol) I just know i would be in over my head but a good team is a start!

 

[PlatinumDude]

I would like a trap set up, deal some big hits and stall say the last 2-3 of the team if need be
For this I may switch out mewtwo for Marowak with a thick club using evasive from my drifblum and his stockpile he can avoid being knocked out for a few turns.

As of right now i would like to stay below uber I have not yet gone competive just friends and passerbys (Some really good passerbys lol) I just know i would be in over my head but a good team is a start!

If you want to focus on a team around Marowak, read these article for a starting point: https://www.smogon.com/dex/xy/pokemon/marowak/nu/
https://www.smogon.com/dex/xy/pokemon/marowak/

 

[LoyalTraitor]

Still looking for a 6th pokemon for my team

 

[PlatinumDude]

Still looking for a 6th pokemon for my team

First off, I'd recommend reworking your team from scratch. As mentioned before, Taunt completely shuts the setup portion of your team down and your team has to be less reliant on that.

 

[LoyalTraitor]

This is frustrating.... Anyone know a way around this?
The strategy I like ,set trap, bulk pass, kill kill kill stall
but obviously wont work if I face someone with taunt..

Ways around this? Different pokemon? maybe that final pokemon?
I've done research I'm not trying to build a typical paper team.. but its not the same as other players opinions and exp

 

[Nah]

Magic Bounce and Mental Herb helps with Taunt to some degree.

But it's not just Taunt this team has issues with, but phazing as well, and you're putting all your eggs into one basket by running a team entirely dedicated to passing boosts to one Pokemon. So you can either rework the team so it's not "4-5 'mons sole purpose is to boost and pass shit to this one", or go with a completely different team idea.

 

[Eastonn8]

Since I don't know what tier you will be playing in I'm not sure where to start, but one thing I can advise you to do is to change the Forretress moveset to include Volt Switch.

It's a shame, really, that yours doesn't have it. It's basically a free switch-in (since Forretress gets out-sped) without losing momentum. It also does somewhat decent chip damage. I would probably remove toxic spikes.

 

[LoyalTraitor]

So it seems i should just start from scratch...
Well based on the strategy I'm looking to work anyone have suggestions for the new team?

 

[ShanWow]

TLDR: Pick something to build around while including Stealth Rocks. Pick a strong sweeper to Baton Pass to. Don't destroy your team's balance by overloading it with Baton Passers. If you do, account for Taunt and Phazer spam. Try to give your team some other win conditions by having other threats besides your Core Baton Pass receiver.

Disclaimer: This is advice assuming you're playing in Smogon's OU tier as that's what most people in this forum play.

You could grab a suicide lead so you can set up Stealth Rocks and maintain momentum as you switch to something else. Viable suicide leads are Azelf, Garchomp, Scolipede. Scolipede can also Baton Pass fairly well instead of suiciding if you run a Protect set to pass off Speed Boosts.

You could also go for a more traditional Stealth Rock setter such as Ferrothorn (Better Forretress, just no Rapid Spin), Landorus-T, Heatran, etc. They can take hits well and can deal with annoying priority users like Talonflame/Breloom.

If you're starting from scratch, I would recommend figuring out a core for your team. pick 1-3 Pokemon that is the main focus of your team and build around it. e.g. If you wanted to use Mega-Pinsir, you would need something to remove Stealth Rocks and something to deal with Talonflame. Since you want to Baton Pass, maybe something that has trouble setting up by itself usually. Something that can't take hits well at all like Weavile, Talonflame. You could also go something bulky like Mega-Heracross that can be Baton Passed in and start punching holes into Switch-ins. There are a lot of options.

Strong stall Pokemon include Mega-Sableye, Gliscor, Skarmory, Amoonguss, etc. There's an annoying Sigilyph set you can run if there's no Dark types on the enemy team since you like uncommon Pokemon.

The important thing to remember is balance. You don't want 4-5 Baton Passers because that makes your team too one-dimensional. Your win condition is basically pass to Pokemon X and hope X doesn't get walled or Revenge-killed. Once Pokemon X is gone, it immediately makes all the Baton Passers useless. You could stall with whatever you wanted as your sixth Pokemon but most people carry at least one Stallbreaker on their team. Taunt and Whirldwind/Roar are big issues that must be addressed. Your team needs to be able to force switches so your opponent can't just sit there spamming Entry Hazards and phazing you.

This turned out way longer than I initially wanted.