Ranked #2: Curselax Team

[Astamatitos]

At a Glance:

Introduction:

This team utilises a long-forgotten threat, that being the once feared Curselax.
It mainly focuses on taking out most of the Pokemon that would seem problematic to it early on. How do i manage that?
Am pretty sure you have a good guess how i manage to do that, but just in case find out below.


In Depth:

Aerodactyl (M) @ Focus Sash
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 Atk/4 Def/252 Spd
Jolly nature (+Spd, -SAtk)
- Stealth Rock
- Stone Edge
- Toxic / Earthquake
- Taunt

Standard Aerodactyl. Why? Because it deos everything my team needs, let me elaborate:
-First, it stops the enemy team from setting Stealth Rocks down. Something that both my Zapdos and Salamence benefit of.
-It sets up it's own SR which comes really handy for me as my team forces a lot of switches.
-It lures in Scizor and to a lesser extent Forretress (As forry is less used nowadays) like a meal served in silver plate for Magnezone.

Am switching inbetween Toxic and Earthquake all the time.
Toxic can screw up Hippowdon and Swampert whereas Earthquake is mostly coming handy when am facing opponent DDtars.

Snorlax (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Thick Fat
EVs: 204 HP/52 Atk/252 Def
Careful nature (+SDef, -SAtk)
- Curse
- Return
- Rest
- Fire Punch / Crunch

The team is centered around Snorlax.
Am mostly taking out everything that could prove to be a problem to a late game Curselax sweep in the forms of Magnezone trapping steels and Metagross Pursuiting Ghosts including many other things.

Return over Body Slam as it allows me to win the Curse vs DD wars.
Fire Punch hits both Ghosts and Steels hard although since am taking out the Steels with Magnezone, Earthquake doesn't seem like a bad option at first but my team is not Rotom-H friendly at all.
I've tried Crunch but then i ended up having to switch out Snorlax because of Lucarios's that haven't entered the battle earlier in order to trap them with Magnezone.

Evs Explanation:
Careful Nature because it gives me more Evs to use on other stats.
512 HP is a leftovers number.
Maximun Defense because Snorlax is taking mostly Physical hits in D/P (see: Outrage, Waterfall from Gyarados, Close Combats after a Curse boost or two).
Rest in Attack as they give Snorlax more of a Punch.

Magnezone @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Magnet Pull
EVs: 44 Atk/252 Spd/212 SAtk
Naive nature (+Spd, -SDef)
- Thunderbolt
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Flash Cannon
- Explosion

Uses of Magnezone:
Traps and KOes Scizor.
Traps and Koes Lucario after it has used Close Combat or if it's on low hp.
Traps and KOes Earthquake-less Bronzong.
Pretty much it for Magnezone.

Explosion is there in cases i need a fast explosion while it can be also used in order to clear out Blissey late game (After Magnezone has done his job killing all of the opponent steels) allowing Zapdos to go rampant.

Salamence (M) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 Atk/252 Spd/4 SAtk
Adamant nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Outrage
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge
- Dragon Claw

It comes in late game and sweeps freely. Outrage is a broken move, and without any Pokemon left to resist it thanks to Magnezone i can bring this in and out all day while abusing Outrage and Scarfs speed boost.

I used to have Fire Blast over Stone Edge on this Salamence but VIL suggested SE instead as it would allow me to finish off an opponent DDed Gyarados with without being forced to Outrage.

Metagross @ Lum Berry
Ability: Clear Body
EVs: 208 HP/76 Atk/224 SDef
Adamant nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Bullet Punch
- Earthquake
- Explosion
- Pursuit

Switches in on Gengar's Shadow ball and Pursuits away as it switches out. Should it stay in and try it's luck i would Bullet Punch next to finish it.

Metagross is a really useful Pokemon for this team as not only it gives me a priority attack in the form of Bullet Punch and an indirect attacking move in the forms of pursuit, it also provides good Rock resistance and a backup counter to opponent DDtars that cause me some trouble.
Earthquake has proven to be a really useful team as it has caught a lot of Heatran's off guard.
Explosion is great. Not much needs to be said about it.

Zapdos @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 HP/76 Def/180 Spd
Timid nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Thunderbolt
- Heat Wave
- Roost
- Roar

My fighting resist should my opponent have a fighting type other than Lucario.

Roar is a great move on Zapdos as not only it phazes away stat boosters and things that try to get a substitute on my switch out, it also abuses Stealth Rock. I've found roar to be proven godsend in cases i was forced to stall games with just it and Snorlax.

HP Ice isn't needed on Zapdos ever since Garchomp moved to ubers so i've decided to use Heat Wave as Fire moves are great on defensive walls nowadays.

On top of that, Zapdos offers great synergy with Gengar.

Synoptically,

Aerodactyl lures in Scizor early on which allows me to take it out thanks to Magnezone. Again, Lucario is also trapped and killed by Magnezone

Zapdos walls the Fighting Attacks coming to Snorlax while facing any attempts at setting up.

Scarf Salamence is there for my revenge killing needs, which greatly benefits my team and especially Snorlax.

Metagross takes out Gengar which can be problematic to me, while it can also absorb a Trick thrown at Snorlax, should the need be.

Snorlax gets in on the weakened team and utterly destroys it.
The end,

~Astamatitos

 

[M Dragon]

It is quite a good team, but i see lots of problems with Rhyperior (specially the SubSD one)

If Rhyperior gets a Sub, it can do a lot of damage to you, since it's STAB attacks will hit you with super effective damage to 5 of your pokes, and snorlax won't be doing anything to it

 

[Astamatitos]

Heh, you are right M Dragon. I have faced some Rhyperiors but most of the time i was able to work around them by breaking their subs with Metagross and then finishing them off with Flash Cannon. It can indeed cause a lot of trouble to this team if used correctly, but then again, who uses Rhyperior nowadays..

 

[Komodo]

It is quite a good team, but i see lots of problems with Rhyperior (specially the SubSD one)

If Rhyperior gets a Sub, it can do a lot of damage to you, since it's STAB attacks will hit you with super effective damage to 5 of your pokes, and snorlax won't be doing anything to it

I also agree with this, snorlax should be like this :

Snorlax @ Chesto Berry
204 hp / 252 def / 52 spD
Careful Nature
Thick fat
- Curse
- Crunch
- Body slam / return
- Rest

The spD ev's will let you take some more powerful moves, snorlax wont need the extra attack if it has curst, its attack is already high, Crunch for ghost types, this also will hurt rhyperior, body slam has less base power than return but this gives some well needed paralysis support and is a good STAB attack too.



I recommend you use a defensive ghost type just in case rhyperior MIGHT have focus punch, Dusknoir is ideal for this because it can have ice punch

Dusknoir @ Leftovers
252 hp / 200 def / 56 spD
Impish Nature
Pressure
- Will-o-wisp
- Ice Punch
- Shadow Sneak / Curse
- Pain split

An ideal replacement for zapdos, the impish nature and ev's provide a more defense orientated dusknoir, will-o-wisp will cripple rhyperior, swampert and the likes, ice punch will destroy dragons and rhyperior, Pain split for recovery, shadow sneak to kill fast psychic / ghost type sweepers. I put curse here because this could be a last resort to opponents you cant kill ( walls etc )
I dont think zapdos is neccessary since you are basing your team around a curselax, ae

 

[IceTime]

When CBTar predicts correctly, he tends to give this team problems also, since it rips shreds off magnezone and zapdos with stone edge, even, beats metagross due to lack of attack evs, and will switch out on salamence since its needed for weather teams as a weather inducer and its not good to weaken a weather inducer much. Crunch also might inflict enough defense drops to outdo curse while you're resting, since i used this team for a while and it happened. -.- (lol no steal just trying to find weaknesses) Said Rhyperior weakness is true too, with sub it takes out at least one member of your team, of course Salamence could revenge it but since its revenge one prime member of your team is gone and the "thing that prevents curselax from setting up" that that member of your team was supposed to counter can now stop curselax. i dunno much to says, haha i'll think about it and get back with solutions.

 

[Fland]

I like the Aerodactyl-Magnezone combo, I've used it myself and I must say, it works very well. Why do you have 4 special attack ev's on Salamence? You might want to invest them in HP. Has Mamoswine been a pain for you? Like a LO Mamo with superpower? Im just curious because I may possibly be a threat if It switches into a scarfed Zone's Thunderbolt. Like I said, just curious.

 

[SoT]

I see that you don't have a real counter to Gyarados and other DD Mences. After one sets up, you're either looking at hoping that Stone Edge misses for Gyarados, and that Salamence uses outrage early so you can "counter" with Magnezone or Metagross. Both of which is used right could cause some serious trouble for this team. Also rhyperior usage has increased since last month, so you may want to watch out for that...both the Sub Rock Polish Liechi, and the Sub SD can and will cause major problems to this team. I would probably suggest trying to fit in a bulky water like Suicune/Vaporeon in here so that you can somewhat counter all 3 of those offensive monsters. I really am not sure what pokemon you could drop for that, and I'm pretty sure you're set on keeping this team as is, but just keep this thought into consideration if people start exploiting that.