So I qualified for the RBY UU Dragonite Suspect Test through
the first live tournament after a double Round-Robin reset and ended up bringing Pinsir to those rounds. It was a bit of a mess, but hey, we take those. This Pinsir team was originally made with the assistance of
Volk when I was playing in UUFPL, but I never had a chance to properly use it, so it was nice to have an opportunity to show what this Pokemon can do.
Most of the teambuilding process has slipped my mind by this point, so I'll focus on the team itself and what each member contributes to a team. If anyone wants to use it in the last two suspect tours, feel free to give it a try, but I wouldn't recommend it for BO1. In hindsight, I think I could have beaten
Shellnuts with this team if I used it before I got knocked out of the main bracket, as it has a pretty decent matchup against Normal Spam.
Here are the replays where I used Pinsir, where you'll also see my strange ability to call upon the RBY Gods for support;
- Me VS Aliss (Round-Robin reset)
- Imo the better of the replays, as I hadn't realised how Aliss played around Wrap yet and didn't go out for cheese. Here you can see just how well Pinsir can lock down the game alongside Tentacruel. I could have got an AgiliWrap going very early on, but I use PhysNite on this team for consistency.
- Me VS Aliss (Post-reset and Thundercebra forfeit, this made me qualify kekw)
- I noticed Aliss really didn't know how to play around Wrap by this point so I kind of just clicked it the whole game to take advantage of her slow team composition. Imo there were a lot of clear paths for her to win (particularly staying in on nite with gyara and clicking blizzard) but it was still a tidy lockdown.
These aren't the greatest representations of my gameplay in my opinion as it was quite literally 4 AM and I was really starting to feel the torpor, but hey, Pinsir won tour games!
The Team
Tentacruel
Ability: none
- Blizzard
- Surf
- Wrap
- Rest
Your usual Lead Tentacruel stuff, nothing new to the average player. This is the typical Wrap Pivot set everyone is using, and it works excellently alongside Pinsir and Dragonite. This is because Pinsir acts as a Ground resist that checks Dugtrio, while Dragonite ensures it can't just click Earthquake every time. With this core together, it can be very difficult to come back once the team starts getting its chokehold down. Not much else to say here, it's the great dictator.
If you want, you can possibly go out and use a Swords Dance set for sweeping potential, but this is worse in the lead slot imo. Keep that stuff to Pinsir.
Pinsir
Ability: none
- Swords Dance
- Hyper Beam
- Slash
- Bind
The star of the show, Pinsir is a very underrated Pokemon in my opinion. I
wrote the analysis on it if you're curious, but it's really nice in this Dugtrio-heavy metagame; its Defense is just enough for Rock Slide to not matter if you're at full HP. Being a Ground resist that can beat Dugtrio is very important in this metagame and is partly why Dragonite and co. have risen so much. I really like using Bind with this Pokemon since it ensures Dragonite can't set up on it for free, as it's barely faster. Once Dugtrio is accounted for, Pinsir is also bulky enough defensively to absorb Wrap chip. You can use this alongside Omastar to PP stall it just fine. The real kicker here is Swords Dance, which can make Pinsir's Bind deal
brutal amounts of damage, far outstripping anything SDCruel can do: +2 Hyper Beam can even OHKO Tentacruel just under half the time, and you bet I'm stupid enough to go for it in a tournament game. However, Pinsir is hard to set up and is a bit inconsistent, which is why this thing isn't kicking UU's ass up and down the highway. Many people are too comfortable using Rest at half HP and bringing in Pinsir is a really nasty punish to that as well; breaking opposing Hypno is this team's biggest strength.
While bringing Pinsir in is often seen as difficult, you should have little trouble with it using this team. Tentacruel and Dragonite are your momentum-grabbers, and sleeper Hypno means there will always be something for you to abuse. Force Pokemon to Rest or ease in Tent/Nite and Pinsir will be coming in and wreaking havoc. Honestly, this team can probably bring in anything, it's just that Pinsir helps so well on the defensive end. It helps that not many people remember Bug resists Ground and it's so easy to lure Dugtrio.
I think Pinsir could be considered a D+ or C- Pokemon on the VR, but that's the woke take and everyone is going to shoot me for it. Also, Toxic being so prevalent can be really nasty for Pinsir, since it wants to core w/ Tentacruel and Dragonite to form that difficult-to-break Wrap core, and thus Tox makes it lose way too much HP. This also applies when ToxWrap strats are being done...
Hypno
Ability: none
- Hypnosis
- Thunder Wave
- Psychic
- Rest
Your average sleeper Hypno build, being used to further enable Pinsir. Many people seem to sack their Hypno to sleep for some reason, and this is ripe for Pinsir exploitation since it's not the finest physically. Hypno also lives forever and can paralyze like 4 Pokemon before finally going down, so in optimal conditions, you've disabled 4-5 Pokemon and now the opponent stares death in the face. It's also worth mentioning that PhysNite + Pinsir largely makes up for the shit Kadabra matchup this set tends to have. Hypno should be on every team, it's just a matter of what build you're using and how you accommodate it.
Omastar
Ability: none
- Surf
- Blizzard
- Body Slam
- Rest
This team struggles against Normal-types, and Omastar Expert Volk suggested I use this to make up for it. Best decision we ever made, this thing works sublimely alongside Pinsir. Dugtrio is kept firmly in check while Omastar goes on the special offence while PP stalling Wrap. I really like Body Slam on this set since people have a weird obsession with trying to use Tentacruel to check this thing, and I still to this day don't know why when it's opening itself up to paraslam. Either way, a paraslam'd Tentacruel is Pinsir bait and it's gonna hurt. You can use Vaporeon here but don't actually do that unless you want Normal Spam to cleave you open.
Dragonite
Ability: none
- Body Slam
- Blizzard
- Thunder Wave
- Wrap
"What's this PvK? No AgiliWrap?" that's right, Jimbo, no AgiliWrap. This team doesn't need or really want it since the drop in consistency can be a big problem and Pinsir is our battering ram. Additionally, Dragonite's Body Slam hits like a bus, even 2HKOing Kadabara. By liberating our slots a bit, Dragonite can use this "PhysNite" set to scare the daylights out of people, force them to use Toxic or switch out depending on the situation, and allow us to force damage they didn't expect onto their team. This can really mess people up and I love abusing this threat level. I like this more consistent Dragonite a lot and hope to see people try more sets out in the upcoming suspect tournaments!
Kadabra
Ability: none
- Psychic
- Thunder Wave
- Seismic Toss
- Recover
Kadabra is my out to the Tentacruel opening, as is the tradition in this tier. Without it, I have a lot of trouble getting around that Wrap. Kadabra is also one of my main ways of tempting Hypno to click Rest, which is free entry to Dragonite or Pinsir to start advancing the game state. I'm not sure if I like this bugger getting paralyzed all the time though, it can be a bit annoying when Tentacruel starts going "ayo?" and chokes me like I have a fetish or something.
Weaknesses
This team's biggest flaw is Speed. I suppose you can describe it as Bulky Offense, and that's half the problem, as having only one Pokemon to outspeed Tentacruel can put you in a real bind (haha I'm funny). Ergo, you really need to play your Kadabra carefully to play around this. It's a very good out, but alone it can be very shaky. Focus on paralyzing Tentacruel as soon as possible and work on outing it: you have a plethora of ways to do this, you just need to play to it. Once that's down, you should be smooth sailing with proactive gameplay.
That's about all I have time for, good luck everyone!
