Team Volcano Bakemeat

[.Aero]

Team Volcano Bakemeat

So, I have yet again taken on the challenge of creating a team that's built to support my new favorite sweeper, as well as my favorite pokemon, from the 5th generation. That lovely pokemon is none other than Scrafty. However this time, I'm taking a new approach and averting myself from the Bulk Up set that I generally choose to run as bulky offense used to be my kind of style in 4th gen. I've decided to take up a balance style for this team however, but in some cases it could be considered hyper offense I guess (if you don't include the lack of speed on some pokemon). Now I went through very little trial and error while constructing this team. In fact, I only replaced one pokemon after realizing it wasn't working, and this was due to the immense amount of thought I put into adding each and every pokemon. There were a few stipulations I had to follow while making this team as well, and that included not using any of the pokemon or abilities that were suspect during the Round 3 of testing on Smogon. Despite not using said pokemon myself, I did take into account the threat they still posed when playing on servers other than Pokecommunity's, this is most apparent with my final pokemon choice due to Latios.

Building Progression

According to my intro, I took yet another approach to creating a team around Scrafty. However this time, I went for my personally less used option of the Dragon Dance set.

Next I spent quite a bit of time looking for the perfect pokemon that would complement a DD Scrafty sweep. I took into account which pokemon both pose a threat to Scrafty himself, as well as have the potential to wall him. This lead me to the conclusion that Calm Mind Slowbro would be the most beneficial teammate to the sweep. He resists the oh so common Mach Punch, he can knock around both Hippowdon and Skarmory which would otherwise hinder the sweep. He also stops Gyarados as well which would simply intimidate Scrafty, eliminating the +1 I would get after a Dragon Dance. Seems like the perfect partner to Scrafty if you ask me. Also Gliscor loses to Scald.

Now that I have a single pokemon that can quite literally support Scrafty in almost every way imaginable, I figured I should start focusing on general threats in the metagame. The first opponents that came to mind were Scizor and the plethora of dragons that run rampant. My choice to counter all of this was Balloon Heatran. He has the ability to switch in and resist dragon moves, and possibly avoid earthquakes assuming his balloon is still intact. He proceeds to hit back with Hidden Power Ice to knock all those dragons around. Fire Blast takes care of Scizor, although I need to be careful of superpowers and the whole "hit and run" tactic that Scizor will pull off with an EQ'er.

Because of the uncertainty of how well Heatran would be able to handle both Scizor and dragons, I went ahead and added Zapdos. He can maul Scizor with Heat Wave if the event ever rises, and demolish dragons with HP Ice. He also offers fantastic synergy with Scrafty as well, and he was a nominee for the place of Slowbro. My only disappointment with Zapdos is the lack of a reliable flying STAB to hit Conkeldurr (or other Mach Punchers) with. He's still a great asset to the team nonetheless.

After that, I noticed I had no real answer to Latios. Sure Heatran could come in on a Draco Meteor, but he'll also lose his balloon and won't be able to do too terribly much back. That's where the specially defensive Jirachi comes into play. Not only does he handle Latios, but he also takes the place of a reliable rock resist, which if I had not chosen Jirachi, Scrafty would be the designated rock resist, and that would wreck his survivability. He also makes a good Wish support pokemon and can help keep Scrafty and Heatran alive.

Finally I needed a lead. A couple of things I noticed that my team was lacking in. One of the major ones was the lack of Stealth Rock. I did a quick search on pokemon who could use stealth rock, as well as use rapid spin (as Zapdos may not like switching in and out with the Life Orb recoil taking some of his precious health). Not many options came up because Rapid Spin is a somewhat rare move. I discarded the idea of rapid spin and went for just stealth rock. I then went for a ground type that could prevent opponent Ferrothorn from flinging around annoying thunder waves, which my team would lose to otherwise. Two options seemed viable in this situation: Mamoswine and Gliscor. I went with Mamo as my team also lack any form of priority (and Mamo has Ice Shard), and he's been a decent lead in the past. As Snow Cloak is banned on the PC PO server, I avoided using such an ability (as it's useless anyway to be honest, as who runs hail?) and went with the newly released Thick Fat which offers some lovely resistances that Mamo wouldn't have otherwise.

After playing around with Mamoswine, I noticed that all he did was add another fighting weak pokemon to my team as he loses to anything named Conkeldurr. So that left one option left: Gliscor. He added the nice fighting resist that I needed, however his now standard set that utilizes his awesome Dream World ability Poison Heal was impossible to have in conjunction with Stealth Rock. I had to make a sacrifice here and I went with Hyper Cutter, as Sand Veil is also banned on the PC PO server. After toying around and realizing that my Gliscor lead really sucked, I threw SR on Heatran over Flame Charge instead and changed Gliscor to the standard Fling/Poison Heal version. At this point, I feel that the team looks good enough, and has performed well enough to be worthy of a Rate My Team. I only have a few problems still, and I will mention those later (as they revolve around stall and I already have an idea as to how to fix that), but for now, here is the final lineup of the team.

A Closer Look

Description

Gliscor honestly complements my entire team rather well, adding a useful fighting resistance that he shares only with Slowbro and Zapdos, and works very well at walling physical threats with the cute psychic/water pokemon. Originally I had used him with a very odd set that included using Stealth Rock, which forced me to give up Poison Heal as they aren't legal together. I also ran Swords Dance on him for some reason to fit with the whole Hyper Offense vibe that I was trying for. As you can probably assume, this idea failed miserably. That's when I decided I do not need Gliscor for SR, but rather I could use him to absorb status, and prevent it from wrecking my team like it did for a while. I figure he does well against most other common leads. Against Tyranitar, I can scout for an Ice Beam with protect and start up my poison heal. Of course, most people expect this and I can hammer them with Earthquake as they try and set up SR instead. Meinshao is also walled fairly well too, although it tends to set up a Sub and baton pass it away to some sweeper, so my best bet is just EQ'ing right off the bat against either matchup. As for Deoxys-S, I'm not entirely sure what I would do in a normal circumstance. I would start with protect to scout for an Ice Beam, and then switch to an appropriate counter to deal with him. I'm usually questioning which set people run, as I've seen his sweeper set go insane sometimes instead of a dual screen or spikes set. All in all, Gliscor seriously adds to the teams purpose, and that is protecting Scrafty from the deadly fighting types like Conkeldurr and Meinshao.

Gliscor@Toxic Orb
Impish Nature [+Def; -SpA]
Ability: Poison Heal
EVs: 252 HP / 184 Def / 72 Spe
- Fling
- Acrobatics
- Earthquake
- Protect

Description

Scrafty is the star of this team, and quite honestly for good reason. As stated in the introduction, I went with the Dragon Dance set, but adjusted it somewhat to deal with my status issues, and that is by adding Shed Skin. It sort of harms his sweeping potential, but I had to compromise and decide that paralysis/burn also harms that, but even more so. Drain Punch and Life Orb work well in conjunction with each other, otherwise I'd run Leftovers and HJK, but I dislike HJK's unlucky misses and that stops his sweep. So yeah, back to Shed Skin. Originally I had absolutely no status absorbers (meaning, I didn't have Poison Heal Gliscor). I figured the best way to deal with this was putting Shed Skin on Scrafty. It helped him quite a bit and extended his sweeping potential. I haven't reverted to Moxie after adding in Poison Heal Gliscor, and I guess I could use some opinions on ability choice for him. Shed Skin also helps against Jellicent who want to Scald/WoW me. As for some reasoning as to why he's so great, after a DD he can outspeed positive nature base 111's (most notably Thundurus, and Lati@s pair) and smack them around with a nice +1 Ice Punch and Crunch respectively. He can also handle non-scarf Garchomp variants after a DD, as well as Landorus, both which are used on annoying Sandstorm teams that would otherwise be a little bit harder to check.

Scrafty@Life Orb
Jolly Nature [+Spe; -SpA]
Ability: Shed Skin
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
- Dragon Dance
- Drain Punch
- Crunch
- Ice Punch

Description

Slowbro complements Scrafty so well it's not even funny. A wonderful fighting resist, the ability to maul Conkeldurr with a boosted Psychic and with his cute ability Regenerator he's a scary pokemon to face if the opponent isn't carrying something with a powerful thunderbolt or dark pulse. I spent a lot of time deciding upon Slowbro, checking multiple pokemon to see who would partner best with Scrafty. I found that Slowbro can check the majority of Scrafty's counters and checks (such as Conkeldurr, Gyarados, Skarmory and Hippowdon) and can hit back if I were to choose the Calm Mind set. After a few calm minds, his modest base 80 special defense will be decent enough to take neutral special hits as well. Despite being weak to status myself, I especially enjoy spreading around a great plethora of them. With Scald, Slowbro loses his pursuit bait almost completely with the 30% chance to burn the likes of Tyranitar and Scizor, and paired with his ability makes it seem like pursuit never even happened.

Slowbro@Leftovers
Bold Nature [+Def; -Atk]
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
- Calm Mind
- Slack Off
- Psychic
- Scald

Description

Zapdos, believe it or not, was actually considered in place of Slowbro while initially looking for the perfect pokemon to complement Scrafty. Now most people are probably wondering why I'm not just running Thundurus. My main reason comes from reliable recovery, the bulkier disposition, and well...Zapdos is just a badass in every sense of the word. I went with the standard sweeper set as I want this team to be as offensive as possible, and as I believe I stated earlier, bulky offense just doesn't work anymore. Zapdos works as an amazing Scizor counter, resisting its two STABs and then has the ability to OHKO with Heat Wave. This trait is also useful when up against Ferrothorn and offers a little backup in the event that Heatran dies and I lose my only other fire move. Zapdos is a staple to this team, and it causes quite a few problems to my opponents in most cases. He also handles Rotom-W rather well as he 2HKO's with thunderbolt (at least versus Specs variants, I haven't fought any others). Zapdos also adds that extra little fighting resist, but in all honesty it's only good for taking mach punches from Breloom or Conkeldurr. I'm a little disappointed that I can't sue Lightningrod on him yet, but even if I could, I lose coverage by losing Heat Wave (although the Ferrothorn t-wave absorption to raise special attack would be amazing not only for Zapdos, but for the team as a whole. Perhaps finding a good L-rod set could lead to Moxie being put on Scrafty).

Zapdos@Life Orb
Timid Nature [+Spe; -Atk]
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
- Thunderbolt
- Heat Wave
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Roost

Description

Heatran round of the team by countering two major threats to any team: Exadrill and Sun teams. With the balloon, I swap in on an EQ from Dory, and proceed to thrash it with Fire Blast (or Earth Power if it's balloon is gone, for more reliable accuracy), and it can absorb the common fire moves on sun teams, removes my water weakness, and can hit really hard with an imminent flash fire bonus regardless of if the opponent resists (after a Flash Fire + Sun, he can 2HKO Latias with Fire Blast). He's also one of the two steals on my team made to deal with dragons, most specifically, Garchomp. In the event that Zapdos dies, Heatran can come in on Chomp's EQ's (or Outrages) and hit back with HP Ice for the OHKO, unless they're running yache. Of course, Zapdos is my main counter for the reason that Heatran can lose his balloon, but he's an extra little support to that problem. He's also a major supporter on killing dragons that I have problems with, notably, Latias. So he's basically my dragon resist who can hit back. Unlike my next contender.

Heatran@Balloon
Timid Nature [+Spe; -Atk]
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
- Fire Blast
- Earth Power
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Stealth Rock

Description

Jirachi was chosen simply to stop Latios. How little did I know how useful Special Defense Jirachi could be. With the spectacular ability Serene Grace, paired with Body Slam, I love spreading the paralysis around, especially on a common switch in: Exadrill. It helps me not be weak to him believe it or not, which is ironic because of his ground weakness. Also, with Wish support, he improves the survivability of absolutely all my pokemon, and losing any pokemon at all on a non-weather team is basically a game over from there. Call him a hax pokemon, I know he is. That's why we use him right? He's also great at stopping Reuniclus. However, my major problem with using him to stop Reuniclus is because I completely rely on the flinchparahax combo to stop it. It feels dirty, but it gets the job done when Scrafty can't.

Jirachi@Leftovers
Careful Nature [+SpD; -SpA]
Ability: Serene Grace
EVs: 252 HP / 224 SpD / 32 Spe
- Iron Head
- Body Slam
- Wish
- Protect

Threat List

The actual threat list is massive, so I'll ignore the pokemon that I know I can handle, and just put in the ones that I actually view as problematic or team wrecking.

Azelf - Nasty Plot Variant: My only answer to this is Scrafty after 2 DDs, which isn't reasonable at all. I'm trying to think of ways to deal with this without issue. My team is a little too slow to deal with such a fast pokemon.

Deoxys-S - Any variant really kind of causes me problems. The LO variant hits hard, and obviously, fast, so I have no true answer to him. The Spikes or Dual Screen sets annoy me as well because my team is stall weak, and I require some setting up before I can start hitting hard enough to not worry about screens.

Haxorus - He could be difficult to deal with. Not sure though. Heatran can probably do well, paralysis/flinch with Rachi could work as well.

Defensive Combo - The most annoying defensive combo is Ferrothorn / Latias, as I can't hit hard enough with either Tran or Zapdos to OHKO Latias with HP Ice. Because I can't do this, it just recovers off the damage. Scrafty could do well, but the Leech Seed from Ferrothron wears him down fast. If Jellicent is in this combo, I'm pretty much at a loss.

That's all I can see.

Conclusion & Afterthoughts

Considering this was one of the first teams I spent a major amount of time devising, I'm extremely happy with how it turned out. Now I haven't done perfect in battles by all means. I certainly have a huge problem dealing with stall and that defensive combo I mentioned. So any help figuring out what I can do to fix these issues are appreciated. My favorite idea is replacing Slowbro with Reuniclus. However, that raises the issue of stopping the physical threats (as Reuniclus isn't a physical wall at all) that Slowbro does so well. Gliscor only does so well and I wouldn't have an answer to stopping Gyarados. Any help is appreciated. Reuniclus would be great to be honest, I just need to figure out where he'd fit best. :[ I just honestly don't know. He could probably handle NP Azelf pretty well too, and help out with that defensive combo weakness a bit as well. So that's why I'm posting. I want this team perfected. :]

 

[Xephyr]

For starters, I have to complement the brilliant format of this threat.

Now on to the team, which, I believe I have faced this team before, and I remember getting swept by Scrafty <.<

Anyway, this is a fantastic team. You've already answered your question as to how to make it even better: Reuniclus. You say Reuniclus isn't a physical wall, which isn't really true. It can be considered an even better wall than Slowbro when you take into account that it doesn't have that Electric and Grass weakness. Plus, the Magic Guard from Reuniclus will help your team quite a bit. The best part is that Reuniclus absolutely decimates stall, and you've mentioned that Stall gives you quite a bit of trouble. Latias and Ferrothorn can't do anything to you because of Calm Minds and Magic Guard, respectively, so you can just soar up to +6 with Calm Mind and slaughter with Psychic/Psyshock or Focus Blast or whatever. Even Blissey can't wall that Reuniclus (which doesn't even matter since the rest of your team handles Blissey pretty handily). Plus, your team already has some of the best counters to the only Pokes that really give Reuniclus trouble: Scizor and Tyranitar. Heatran, Jirachi, and Gliscor have no trouble whatsoever handling those two.

tl;dr replace Slowbro for standard Calm Minding Reuniclus

 

[.Aero]

Thanks for the rate. :] I have now gone through with replacing Slowbro with CMReuniclus, but I won't edit the main post as I do have both teams saved, and alternate depending on how annoying I get at stall. Thanks for the feedback though. :D

 

[jkriall]

I think lead should be heatran, partly cause you gain a chance too set up early SR depending on their lead, partly cause it's a good idea to hide gliscor as he's your main answer to sand teams.

Not much to improve, maybe thundurus over zapdos for Twave support. But this is solid and pretty damn balanced

 

[.Aero]

I've thought about using Heatran as a lead, but then his Balloon becomes moot. I'm not sure Balloon Tran should function as a lead in most cases. He also loses to all the common leads (see Tyranitar, Meinshao, etc). I rarely, if ever, get stealth rocks up to be honest. It's a bad habit, but I'm afraid I can't really put Heatran in the lead slot. I will definitely try that out however. :]

Zapdos is in there as he's more bulky than Thundurus. I don't necessarily need T-Wave support with Jirachi spreading it around like Malaria in Africa (believe it or not, it's rare for the opponent to not have 3 of his pokemon paralyzed by this method). I could try him I guess. I just feel Zapdos' bulk adds to the overall purpose of the team a bit more than Thundurus would.

Thanks for the rate. :]