:</p><p>Tyranitar: :</p><p>Infernape: :</p><p>Rotom-Wash: :</p><p>Empoleon: :</p><p>Roserade: :</p><p>Scizor:
https://pokepast.es/b9068c56d8c28ae8
This team is one that've I've been working on for about 3-4 months now, but I thought I'd enter it since It qualifies for the competition, some of the most important additions to the team were made in the last week or so, and the ghost type on it is one of the most important mons on the team.
Scarf Rotom gives the team a switch in to fighting moves, a generally great revenge killer, and a way to hold hazards against starmie, forretress or the uncommon tentacruel trying to spin away Roserade's spikes. Alongside helping to hold hazards, perhaps the most important thing Rotom does is helping the team ward off the dangerous DD Gyarados, as it can outspeed it even if it dd's and ohko it with thunderbolt. Even if it is holding a wacan berry, this is still immensely helpful because it will still be weakened to the point where something like scizor's bullet punch can pick it off and it is no longer a check to the team. I chose to have both HP ice and hydro pump on here and to drop shadow ball. Hydro being able to actually pressure tyranitar is something I found almost too good to pass up (good luck trying to do meaningfull damage to most tyranitar with thunderbolt), and it also is great against things like hippowdon and heatran that might otherwise not care about it much. Rotom can also help check lucario (if it lacks crunch) and scizor in a pinch, and (if something else on my team is slept, like my sleep talk roserade) it can even come in to break sub punch breloom's substitute and weaken it with hidden power ice.
Speaking of which..
Scizor provides the team with a powerful late game cleaner, a way to catch gengar (rotoms tbolt doesnt ohko gar from full), scarf flygon, and boosted dd dragonite, and a dragon resist. I chose offensive life orb SD scizor since the bulky version is pretty much required to run roost. The bulky version isn't bad, but I find that scizor wants bug and fighting coverage simultaneously and struggles without both. Without bug bite it loses to starmie, and without super power or the uncommon brick break it loses to heatran and steels (bar bronzong) in general. I also like the life orb set's immediate power.
I was originally using swampert in empoleon's slot, but I added empoleon because pert made my team too weak to breloom. Empoleon isn't much better in that regard, but i find it doesn't let loom in for free either. Unlike with Ice beam from empoleon, swampert's ice punch will never ohko breloom. Empoleon's steel typing also gave my team a solid check to kingdra, and with shuca it can act as a lure to dnite, gliscor and flygon who may come in and try to earthquake it, only to watch in horror as empoleon survives with shuca berry and ohko's them back with ice beam. It also has grass knot, making it better against opposing water types than swampert, and its hydro pump is incredibly strong.
I originally had tyranitar as a dragon dance sweeper and empoleon as my stealth rock lead, but recently I switched it to the other way around; now ttar is my lead and emp is my sweeper. Tyranitar I wanted to check heatran, rotom, and psychics like starmie and latias that trouble infernape. I took the standard utility tyranitar spread, and took the spa evs and dumped them into special defense to make tyranitar more sturdy against the three main pokemon I needed it to deal with; rotom-a, latias and starmie. I took the set from Vay's sample team, as it lets tyranitar ohko tran and smack opposing ttar hard, it gives it reliable stab move, pursuit to trap psychics and ghosts, and the ever-so important stealth rock. I love custap berry for utility ttar for getting off a last ditch attack, acting as a lure to starmie and lati that might use a water move to pick off ttar at low health, only to get crunched and either taken down or severely weakened.
Roserade was my lead in the first version of this team, but now that it's not I probably should use something else over focus sash, like Black sludge. For the last few months though, I've kept it, and it's overall been ok on rade. It can help rade stay in against something like an agility boosted metagross and chip it with hp fire into range of something like my rotom's thunderbolt. But that isn't rade's main job. it's main job is absorbing poison and setting spikes for it's teammates to abuse, and its also decent into water types. I gave it sleep talk because my team lacked a sleep absorber for breloom, and since roserade resists both of brelooms stabs and is an otherwise solid check to it, it made for a good 4th move. Sleep powder is illegal alongside spikes anyway, so it's not really a loss.
And Finally, the mon that made me want to build this team in the first place.
Infernape's viability is at an all time low right now, but when I do want to use infernape, choice band is probably my favorite option. It gives ape a massive power boost while also not wearing it down like life orb does. Close combat is here as a strong fighting stab move and to hit usual ape targets like ttar, heatran and the like. flare blitz's recoil is massive, but its power is explosive, being able to land 2hko's on even resists after hazards. It even can ohko impish jirachi, and with stealth rock the ohko is guaranteed. U-turn is amazing for gaining momentum and hitting starmie and latias, and mach punch lets it revenge kill dd tar and sd lucario in a pinch. with just stealth rock, dd tar dies to mach punch, and lucario doesn't take much chip damage either. As a whole, nothing is scarier to switch into with hazards down than infernape. Just Cb makes its power monstrous, but hazards pushes that power to obscene levels. to show some calcs...
252 Atk Choice Band Infernape Flare Blitz vs. 240 HP / 160+ Def Jirachi: 392-464 (97.7 - 115.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock
252 Atk Choice Band Infernape Close Combat vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Latias: 137-162 (45.5 - 53.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
As for it's strengths, I've found the team to be quite good vs rose tran balance teams. once rotom and latias are out of the picture, which is easy to achieve with tyranitar, the remaining team members are utterly terrified of ape, emp and scizor. clef stall also has a lot of trouble vs this team, since mie gets wrecked by ttar, clef gets demolished by ape and sciz, hippo is terrified of emp (especially with shuca preventing eq from taking it down) and rade, etc. Ho also can be troubled by the team once gyarados is out of the picture.
As for it's weaknesses, the team is very loom weak, and scarf rotom can be annoying if tyranitar dies before it can pursuit it. ironically, it also is weak to opposing infernape, but that is on the rarer side these days. lucario can also be a problem if ape and rotom go down. Gyarados is perhaps the biggest threat, as rotom is the only safe answer to it, and even rotom doesn't want to get hit by gyara more than once or so. If gyara can get 2 boosts, it sometimes will sweep through the team within just a few turns, but as long as I can get rotom in to kill it, or I can weaken it with rade and finish it off with scizor, then my team can handle it
Overall, this team isn't spectacular by any means, but it is one that I've put my heart and soul into and one I've had decent success with (its gotten one of my alts to the 1500's, and another one to the 1400's). The ghost type on it may not be the pokemon the team is centered around, but its one of the most important pokemon on the team.
- Team 3 by 
Team 4
