Engage people with what they expect; it is what they are able to discern and confirms their projections. It settles them into predictable patterns of response, occupying their minds while you wait for the extraordinary moment — that which they cannot anticipate.
Sun Tzu,
The Art of War
TheShoddyStrawman made a wonderful team inspired by deception, using a Sun Tzu quote to exemplify the theme of the team. I absolutely loved that and decided to do my own.
I present to you all, Sun Tzu Spikes. This team likely looks familiar, as this team is based off of Wesh Papillon's infamous Candian Spikes team. At this point most people are very familiar with his team, and I wanted to use that to create the element of surprise (Spoiler there's no Spikes on this team lol).
First we have Abra, the most common lead for the team. Abra is eviolite which catches many people off guard, and carries energy ball as well. This let's you live any hit from Diglet and KO in return, eviolite also let's you not get 2HKO'd by defensive staryu, a common lead against the expected Spikes Dwebble.
Next we have dwebble, our "Hazard Setter", except the hazard is being a mid to late game sweeper. Basically just a surprise shell smasher to take the opponent off guard when they expect Spikes. Endure is to ensure dwebble can come in on Stealth rocks and still get back to full for its Sturdy, similar to recycle Magnemite.
While most people are expecting physical Carv these days, here we have a special carv. Nothing super special about this, it's a set that has existed before and AceHunter recently got a win with in in LCPL so that was pretty cool. It takes grookey by surprise with ice beam, as well as not fearing larvesta's flame body anymore. Very fun to mess around with.
Now here we have a very special pony, one that sets up Sun for itself! Flare Blitz in Sun is very scary, and it also allows ponyta to run Solar Blade and for more recovery with Morning sun. I'm running eviolite flame body but berryjuice and flash fire also works, dropping morning sun for high horsepower. This would also give the team a better match up against opposing Ponyta.
It's hard to be creative with Grookey lol, but here we have SD life orb grookey because why not. I ran Solar Blade to try and take advantage of Ponyta's sun, but I rarely had the opportunity to click it, but it could also be an option for some synergy.
Finally, we have the one difference from Wesh's team, Pancham over Timburr. Pancham provides a better way of handling poison types than timburr does, specially Koffing. You have a very good shot at OHKing koffing with zen headbutt if you knock off as it switches in.
180+ Atk Pancham Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 0 HP / 76+ Def Eviolite Koffing: 5-7 (25 - 35%) -- 1% chance to 3HKO
Possible damage amounts: (5, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 7)
Assuming it does 6 damage;
180+ Atk Pancham Zen Headbutt vs. 0 HP / 76+ Def Koffing: 12-16 (60 - 80%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO
Possible damage amounts: (12, 12, 12, 14, 14, 14, 14, 14, 14, 14, 14, 14, 14, 14, 14, 16)
Pancham also provides some nice pivot mobility with Parting Shot, something that grookey and Carvanha appreciate. Bulk Up or swords dance are also options that work.
Okay all done thanks if you read this far, and thank you to Wesh and TheShoddyStrawman for providing inspiration.