forestflamerunner
Ain't no rest for the wicked
Introduction
B2W2 brought with it a bunch of interesting additions to the metagame, including new Pokémon like the Therians and Keldeo, new abilities for things like Breloom, Ditto, and Sandslash, and some interesting new Move Tutor moves like Roost for Poison Heal Gliscor and Kyurem and Stealth Rock for a dozen new threats. The metagame evolves quickly as players attempt to find ways to handle the newly introduced threats, demonstrated by the rapid rise of Amoonguss and Mamoswine and the equally noticeable decline of Landorus-I and Rotom-W, who found themselves less needed In this new metagame. Personally, I love these points in a metagame’s development; a gamebreaking set can be discovered at any minute and new strategies evolve and devolve at remarkable rates. As we all know, the first month of B2W2 was dominated by weather thanks to rain’s new toys and the subsequent rise of other weathers to handle its familiar denominations. Now, I personally despise using weather teams, mainly because I don’t know the first thing about winning a weather war. Instead, I went ahead and made a weatherless team like I normally do, and after about a week of tweaking and testing, I made a team that worked pretty well. The team peaked around 74 on PS with a rating of 1848 before I went on vacation for a couple of weeks. When I came back, I found that the ladder just got a major update or something and my rating has plummeted to about 1650 or so. I don’t really feel like grinding to get the team back into the top 100 (and it seems I have also lost my touch, going 0-5 in my last few games), so I have decided to post my team here. If you have any suggestions please drop a rate. If you like the team, feel free to take it. And if you love the team, Luvdisc.
The Team is named Valar Morghulis, which is a phrase from the epic book series A Song of Ice and Fire and the equally epic TV show A Game of Thrones. Valar Morghulis means all men must die, and to that effect all of my Pokémon are either genderless or female because my mons survive against all odds. All of the Pokémon on this team are named after the incredibly gorgeous women in A Game of Thrones, with the addition of Arya Stark because she’s a badass. If you haven't gotten around to watching Game of Thrones,I must strongly urge you to spend the twenty hours of your life catching up with the rest of the world. Its life changing and I promise you won’t regret it. There's some X rated material though, so just a heads up.
Teambuliding
Like I previously mentioned, I didn’t want to make a weather team, so stuff like Politoed and the Tornadus-T were off the table. I still wanted to test out some of the new toys B/W brought with it though, so I decided to use a DD Haxorus with Aqua Tail to start me off. To complement Haxorus, I used Alakazam which could break through just about anything that Haxorus couldn’t and also is a surprisingly good wallbreaker with life orb in hand. Finally I added Thundurus to help me deal with the rain teams that plagued the metagame while also letting me test out on of the new threats B2W2 introduced.
Now that I had my offensive core set, I worked on handling the common threats in the metagame. With the introduction of the Therians, the metagame just got even faster. Tornadus-T in particular was a problem thanks to its trolltacular 121 speed. I ultimately decided to use LO Mamoswine and Specially Defensive Jirachi to handle the new therians. This left me one last teamslot which I gave to scizor to give me further insurance against an expected rise in Drag+Mag teams, which I thought would be everywhere thanks to the release of DD Moxiemence.
The team worked decently in the rain infested metagame. The expected surge in Drag+Mag teams never came, but scizor still was very effective at dealing with the slowbros of the world and gave me extra insurance against the therians. However, once other weathers started to creep up to challenge rain, the team began to struggle. Sun in particular proved to be a nightmare because my team was made up of 4 glass cannons+Jirachi+scizor, which meant nothing could handle a +1 Volcarona. Venasaur was also proving problematic with its blistering speed and sleep powder. To fix this, I swapped out Thudurus-T for Scarf Terrakion, which is one of the best answers to Volcarona and does a pretty good job of checking sun teams on the whole.
The problem with Terrakion was two-fold. On one hand, Scarf Terrakion made me incredibly vulnerable to Scizor since everything on the team was seriously threatened by the poke in one way or another. Secondly, It made me weaker to rain; yes it could handle the therians like a boss, but my team was incredibly vulnerable to Hydro Pump spamming, and Terrakion just made me more vulnerable to the strategy. I tried to remedy this problem by using things like Ferrothorn and Jellicent, but ultimately I realized that this teams problems couldn’t be solved with just one Pokémon. So I scrapped Terrakion and Scizor, the two weakest links, and replaced them with Parashuffler Dragonite and Parashuffler Gyarados to help patch up my weakness to Hydro Pump and Scizor, while also giving me a solid answer to sun teams.
I was 8 points away from breaking into the top 100 chart when I faced EonX and his stupid Sub+CM Jirachi. It, simply put, raped my team because none of my Pokémon could break its stupid substitute and live to tell the tale. Unfortunately, after facing EonX, I saw these obnoxious pixies a lot more, so ultimately an adjustment had to be made. I decided to scrap my gyarados because Dragonite was doing its job better thanks to roost and STAB dragontail, and because Gyara’s 4x Electric weakness was annoying. After a little bit of experimentation, I decided to fill the open slot with a funky Celebi I designed to handle both Heatran and the pesky Sub+CM Jirachi. This team is, in my opinion, the best team I have ever crafted. It does have some weaknesses, well built DragMag teams being the most notable, but on the whole, I find that this team can handle most threats reasonably well.
Now that I had my offensive core set, I worked on handling the common threats in the metagame. With the introduction of the Therians, the metagame just got even faster. Tornadus-T in particular was a problem thanks to its trolltacular 121 speed. I ultimately decided to use LO Mamoswine and Specially Defensive Jirachi to handle the new therians. This left me one last teamslot which I gave to scizor to give me further insurance against an expected rise in Drag+Mag teams, which I thought would be everywhere thanks to the release of DD Moxiemence.
The team worked decently in the rain infested metagame. The expected surge in Drag+Mag teams never came, but scizor still was very effective at dealing with the slowbros of the world and gave me extra insurance against the therians. However, once other weathers started to creep up to challenge rain, the team began to struggle. Sun in particular proved to be a nightmare because my team was made up of 4 glass cannons+Jirachi+scizor, which meant nothing could handle a +1 Volcarona. Venasaur was also proving problematic with its blistering speed and sleep powder. To fix this, I swapped out Thudurus-T for Scarf Terrakion, which is one of the best answers to Volcarona and does a pretty good job of checking sun teams on the whole.
The problem with Terrakion was two-fold. On one hand, Scarf Terrakion made me incredibly vulnerable to Scizor since everything on the team was seriously threatened by the poke in one way or another. Secondly, It made me weaker to rain; yes it could handle the therians like a boss, but my team was incredibly vulnerable to Hydro Pump spamming, and Terrakion just made me more vulnerable to the strategy. I tried to remedy this problem by using things like Ferrothorn and Jellicent, but ultimately I realized that this teams problems couldn’t be solved with just one Pokémon. So I scrapped Terrakion and Scizor, the two weakest links, and replaced them with Parashuffler Dragonite and Parashuffler Gyarados to help patch up my weakness to Hydro Pump and Scizor, while also giving me a solid answer to sun teams.
I was 8 points away from breaking into the top 100 chart when I faced EonX and his stupid Sub+CM Jirachi. It, simply put, raped my team because none of my Pokémon could break its stupid substitute and live to tell the tale. Unfortunately, after facing EonX, I saw these obnoxious pixies a lot more, so ultimately an adjustment had to be made. I decided to scrap my gyarados because Dragonite was doing its job better thanks to roost and STAB dragontail, and because Gyara’s 4x Electric weakness was annoying. After a little bit of experimentation, I decided to fill the open slot with a funky Celebi I designed to handle both Heatran and the pesky Sub+CM Jirachi. This team is, in my opinion, the best team I have ever crafted. It does have some weaknesses, well built DragMag teams being the most notable, but on the whole, I find that this team can handle most threats reasonably well.
The Team
Doreah (Dragonite) @ Leftovers
Trait: Multiscale
EVs: 252 HP / 12 Spd / 244 SDef
Careful Nature
Dragon Tail
I find that people tend to forget just how powerful dragon tail is with STAB and a 304 attack stat. Dragon Tail is amazing on dragonite, and when SR is up, it can quickly weaken the opponents team to set up for a sweep
Thunder Wave
The crux of this set. The speed drop from paralysis allows Haxorus, Celebi, and Mamoswine to sweep more easily while the Parahax allows Alakazam and Dragonite to set up substitutes that don’t immediately break.
Substitute
Protects against pesky status and also allows for more multiscale abuse (roost behind unbroken Sub). This move goes a long way to prolong Dragonite’s life.
Roost
The primary form of Recovery for Dragonite. Roost also has the added bonus of removing Dragonite’s Flying type and, by extension, allows it to take less punishment from Ice and Rock type attacks.
Dragonite’s Roles
Paralysis Spreader, Phazer, Water Attack Sponge, Fighting Attack Sponge, Sun Team Check, General Purpose Special Wall
Why Dragonite?
It seems that Parashuffler Dragonite has gotten noticeably more popular in my absence, which is very interesting. Not that I’m surprised- the Parashuffler is a beast in this metagame. Anyways, Dragonite’s main role on this team is spreading Paralysis through Multiscale abuse, Dragon Tailing, and Roost+Substalling. I’m not gonna bore you with the specifics on how this works, because the on-site explanation does that better than I ever could. Instead I’m gonna tell you how Dragonite contributes to this team besides the obvious Parashuffling. For starters, Dragonite sports a very nice palette of resistances including resistances to Hydro Pumps, which comes in handy when facing rain teams. Dragonite also resists Fire and Grass type attacks, which is very helpful when facing sun teams. It takes almost no damage from Venasaur’s most common moves and can paralyze it in return, it takes Volcarona’s STAB’s like a pro and can paralyze/Phaze Volc to cripple it or heavily damage it respectively, and can play around Heatran packing Dragon Pulse or Hidden Power (Ice) very effectively. Finally, Terrakion can also stomach powerful fighting attacks in a pinch and can act as a multipurpose Special Wall if need be thanks to its respectable special bulk.
The EV’s on Dragonite are fairly straightforward, designed to maximize Dragonite’s special bulk. I did give Dragonite a few extra speed EV’s though so that it always outruns most other Parashuffling Dragonites and So that it can Sub before defensive Politoeds can use Toxic. One thing that I feel that people do overlook about Parashuffler Dragonite that still deserves note is the power behing Dragonite’s Dragon Tail. Even when uninvested, Dragonite has a 304 attack. When you throw in a base 60 power STAB attack, you will be dishing out some serious damage. I mean, you may not be breaking through Skarmorys or Ferrothorns any time soon, but you are doing about 30% to Celebis and Terrakions, and opposing dragon types just get decimated by Dragon Tail. Actually, the large amount of damage Dragon Tail does to opposing dragons actually causes this Dragonite to have pretty good offensive synergy with my Celebi. My Celebi can get past some of the bulkier offensive mons (like Terrakion and Conkledurr) but one thing it struggles against are dragon types since none of its attacks really do that much to them. However, when Dragonite is spamming Dragon Tail, sooner or later my opponent tries to use their Hydragon’s Dragon Pulse or something to break through Dragonite’s Substitute or Marvel Scale, and takes a ton of damage in the process. This opens the gates for Celebi who could then clean up a weakened, dragon-lite team.
Daenerys (Haxorus) @ Lum Berry
Trait: Mold Breaker
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 HP / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature
Outrage
Haxorus’s most powerful STAB option. I decided to use Outrage over Dragon Claw or Dual Chop because Haxorus is my primary wall breaker and needs as much power as it can get.
Aqua Tail
Aua Tail is a new toy Haxorus got in B2W2. It gives a more consistent “STAB” option in rain and allows it to get through threats such as Gliscor and Hippodon.
Low Kick
Another New toy Haxorus got its stubby little hands on. Low Kick is Haxorus’s most powerful option against most steels outside of rain, and doesn’t lower Haxorus’s Attack and Defense stats like Superpower would.
Dragon Dance
After a Dragon Dance, Haxorus outspeeds all non scarfed threats and has the power to OHKO most of OU’s premier walls. I entertained Sword Dance over Dragon Dance for a while, but ultimately I found that Dragon Dance had more utility. After all, no matter how well I played Dragonite, the odds of me paralyzing every Pokémon on my opponents team is not high.
Haxorus’s Roles
Physical Sweeper, Wallbreaker, Late Game Cleaner
Why Haxorus
Haxorus is pretty straightforward really. I generally use Dragonite, Jirachi, and Celebi to wear my opponent’s team down and then use Haxorus to clean up. Outrage is the obligatory stab while Aqua Tail and Low Kick hit Gliscor and Ferrothorn hard respectively. I use Lum Berry over Life Orb because Lum Berry lets me set up more easily and lets me give Sableye the almighty finger. Besides, by the time I bring Haxorus out, Life Orb generally is unnecessary anyways. I use Dragon Dance over Sword Dance for reasons listed above, and I use Jolly over Adamant mainly because I needed an extra check to Kyurem and once again, I never really missed the extra power. The EV spread is also straightforward: max speed, max attack. Finally, one interesting thing I learned while playing with this team is that Mamoswine’s Ice Shard and Scizor’s Bullet Punch aren’t clean OHKO’s. That’s right, thanks to its respectable 70/100 defenses, Haxorus survives these attacks with about 20% HP to spare. Just something to consider when you’re up against this beast .
Cersei (Alakazam) @ Life Orb
Trait: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 Spd / 4 Def / 252 SAtk
Timid Nature
Focus Blast
Allows me to nuke the living Hell out of Scizor and Tyranitar. It’s a shame that Alakazam doesn’t have access to Aura Sphere, But Focus Blast can guarantee a few KO’s Aura sphere couldn’t, so whatever.
Psyshock
STAB of choice for Alakazam. I chose Psyshock over psychic on alakazam to help me work my way through Clissey/Chansey while also giving myself a solid answer to Keldeo, Virizion, and Volcarona switch-ins.
Shadow Ball
Shadow Ball rounds out coverage on Alakazam, allowing it to hit psychics hard.
Substitute
When combined with Parahax, Substitute works wonders. Just come in on a paralyzed opponent and keep subbing until the opponent misses one of their turns. Then, you can go in for the kill. Substitute gives Alakazam insurance against a Focus Blast miss and also makes Tornadus-T think twice about trying to revenge kill Alakazam.
Alakazam’s Roles
Special Sweeper, Wallbreaker, Late Game Cleaner, Makeshift Revenge Killer
Why Alakazam?
In my opinion, Alakazam is the most threatening special sweeper in the entire OU metagame. With its three attacks, Alakazam achieves perfect coverage and thanks to Life Orb and its monstrous 135 Special Attack Alakazam can knock out just about any Pokémon in OU with the appropriate move barring dedicated special walls. Actually, most special walls are still defeated by Alakazam thanks to Psyshock which hits on their much lower defense stat. Really the only Pokémon that can hard counter Alakazam is specially defensive Jirachi. Everything else is at risk of getting 2HKO’ed.
Alakazam is more than just a sweeper though. My team lacks a Scarfer so I often rely on Alakazam to revenge key threats. Paralysis is generally able to slow down most of my opponent’s Pokémon to the point where Mamoswine or Celebi can come in and take care of the more threatening mons like Terrakion or Gengar, but every now and again there’s one that got away and that’s where Alakazam comes into play. Alakazam’s base 120 speed stat lets it run down most threats such as the aforementioned Terrakion and Gengar, but also stuff like Starmie and Celebi who manage to shrug off Thunder Wave thanks to Natural Cure. I considered Focus Sash on Alakazam for a while because it allowed be to check just about any Pokémon in the game but ultimately I decided that my team was bulky enough to handle unboosted attacks from Scarfed Pokémon while Mamoswine can check the majority of Speed Boosters (Dragon Dancers) using Ice Shard, so for I decided to go for the extra power for a change and gave Alakazam Life Orb.
Margaery (Celebi) @ Life Orb
Trait: Natural Cure
EVs: 180 Spd / 232 HP / 84 SAtk / 12 Def
Modest Nature
Giga Drain
STAB move of choice. I went with Giga Drain over Leaf Storm because Giga Drain gives Celebi more staying power and allows it to recover some of the HP it loses from life orb. Giga Drain, along with Hidden Power (Fire) goes a long way in breaking up Volt-Turn cores by decimating the likes of Rotom-W.
Earth Power
Used to give my team a good way to handle Heatran while also giving me the ability to breaking Sub+CM Jirachi’s substitutes 100% of the time, even at +2 and in the rain.
Hidden Power [Fire]
Allows me to nail the likes of Scizor and Forretress and other such steel types. Also, whenever an apposing Heatran switches into Hidden Power (Fire), they never switch out the next turn allowing me to KO all but scarf variants with Earth Power.
Recover
Keeps Celebi healthy and reverses the negative effects of Life Orb and overall entry hazard damage. Helps a ton when Giga Drain just wouldn’t heal enough HP.
Celebi’s Roles
Status Absorber, Bulky Water Check, Fighting Type Check, Volt- Turn Check, Heatran/Scizor Lure, Bulky Defensive Pivot
Why Celebi
Despite its offensive set, I tend to use Celebi as a defensive pivot more than anything else, while the Life Orb and the Special Attack investment are mainly just there to help Celebi take down a few additional threats. Celebi sports an amazing palette of resistances, most notably to Water and Electric type attacks, making it a good answer to many water types like Starmie and Rotom-W, taking little from their attacks and hitting back hard with Giga Drain. Speaking of Rotom-W, Celebi does an outstounding job of busting open the Rotom-Scizor Volt-Turn core, courtesy of Giga Drain and Hidden Power (Fire) respectively, saving my team from endless prediction wars. Celebi also has the very handy resistance to Fighting Type attacks, which makes it a nice makeshift check to Terrakion that like spamming Close Combat.
Furthermore, this same Fighting type resist, along with its grass type resist, makes Celebi an outstanding Breloom counter Taking little from Breloom’s Stab Attacks and shrugging off Spores like they’re nothing thanks to Natural Cure. Finally, Celebi does an excellent job of breaking up Ferrothorn + Jellicent cores thanks to its immunity to :eech Seed and status and Celebi’s access to Recover which lets it shrug off any residual damage it may have taken.
The given EV spread was tailored to give Celebi as much bulk as possible while allowing Celebi to take down a few key threats. The given Speed investment ensures that Celebi will always outspeed all Heatran and, with the given investment, can always OHKO after Stealth Rock. Furthermore, Celebi will always be able to break a +2 Sub CM Jirachi’s substitute while taking minimal damage from Water Pulse and Thunder while avoiding the 2HKO from Flash Cannon. Finally, the Remaining EV’s were used to maximize Celebi’s Bulk. 232 HP EV’s gives Celebi 399 HP, minimizing Life Orb recoil and entry hazard damage, and the remaining few EV’s were thrown into defense for the additional bulk.
Obviously, Celebi can’t touch most dragon types, which, while a problem, can be worked around. Like I previously mentioned, Dragonite synergizes really well with Celebi and can pummel the opponent’s dragon types with Dragon Tail, while paralysis lets Celebi outspeed a whole host of threats including Terrakion, Infernape, and multiple Scarfed mons.
Ygritte (Mamoswine) @ Life Orb
Trait: Thick Fat
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spd / 4 HP
Jolly Nature
Earthquake
Obligatory STAB. Not much else to say about this. It hits like a truck against everything but flying and levitate Pokémon.
Superpower
Superpower does an amazing job of handling the Pink Blobs, Tyranitar, Balloon Heatran, and Ferrothorn.
Ice Shard
Ice Shard is this team’s only form of priority. It allows me to check most dragon, flying, and grass types such as Salamence, Tornadus, and Venasaur. also, Ice Shard is a great tool when trying to clean up a weakened team.
Hail
My ace in the hole against weather teams. After eliminating the opponents weather inducer, I can use Hail to eliminate my opponents weather for good. Mamoswine isn’t exactly hard- pressed to find a switch-in opportunity, so I am generally able to use Hail when I force the opponent out.
Mamoswine’s Roles
Dragon Type Check,Therian Check, Steel Type Check, Weather Team Check, BoltBeam Attacker Counter.
Why Mamoswine
Mamoswine is amazing in this metagame. Ice Shard can keep dragon types and the Therians in check while Earthquake and Superpower are great for handling steels that can hinder aHaxorus sweep. Mamoswine’s last moveslot has a pretty lengthy history behind it but I found that Hail is the most effective option. This is mostly because players don’t really guard their weather inducers when playing weatherless teams, which means their weather inducers don’t require an entire lengthy process to take down, which means once the inducer dies Hail can screw them over which means I WIN!!!!!! OK it’s not as simple as that but Hail is an excellent ace in the hole against teams that use their weather inducer as death fodder. Anyways I started running Jolly nature to nab a surprise kill on opposing Mamoswine, but this doesn’t work so well anymore because Superpower is now standard fair on Mamoswine. Still, Jolly lets me outspeed Heatran and KO and also lets me get off an Ice Shard before Breloom can use Mach Punch so I decided to stick with it. TheEV’s are, once again, pretty straightforward. All I did was max speed and max attack for maximum killing power with the last EV thrown into HP for the marginal boost in bulk.
Actually, now that I mention it, Mamoswine is pretty bulky. 110/80/60 is respectable, especially on the physical side. That’s not to mention Mamoswines resistance to BoltBeam courtesy of Thick Fat. Actually, I think Mamoswine is one of a two Pokémon that resist the BoltBeam combination, the other of course being Lanturn. This resistance to BoltBeam makes mamoswine an excellent check to the electric types that rely on BoltBeam’s coverage to do damage,such as Jolteon and some Rotom-W. actually, with prediction, Mamoswine can handle Thundurus-T really well, only fearing its fighting type coverage but otherwise forcing Thundurus-T out. Note that these sort of moments are perfect opportunities to use Hail to eliminate the opponents weather condition if they are using any.
Arya (Jirachi) @ Leftovers
Trait: Serene Grace
EVs: 144 Def / 252 HP / 80 SDef / 32 Spd
Calm Nature
Wish
Wish keeps both Jirachi and my team healthy. Wish is especially useful when trying to keep team alive when facing a stall team.
Iron Head
Iron Head provides Jirachi with some consistent STAB. Iron Head hits a lot of special attackers for nuetral damage (notable exceptions being Rotom-W and Starmie) while also allowing me to abuse the Paralysis Dragonite so skillfully spreads. Furthermore, Iron Head flinches=extra lefties recovery, which is always nice.
Stealth Rock
Stealth Rock makes handling Volcarona and the Therians a hell of a lot easier. I decided to give Jirachi Stealth Rock over Mamoswine or Celebi because I often find that I have to set up Stealth Rock a few times a match and Mamoswine just doesn’t have the bulk to do that, while Celebi just doesn’t have enough space to carry Stealth Rock and still do its job.
U-turn
I Gave Jirachi U-Turn to make sure it didn’t get trapped and eliminated by magnezone. Like I said before, Jirachi is my only Steel Type, and I simply can’t afford to lose her in the face of a dragon onslaught. U turn also makes passing wishes a lot easier. A sort of added bonus.
Jirachi’s Roles
Dragon Type Check, Tornadus-T Counter, Hazard Layer, Wish Passer
Why Jirachi
I have said that this team is very vulnerable to dragon types and this is why. Jirachi is my only steel type.if anything else on this team gets hit with a dragon type attack, it will probably die, and my opponents will figure this out very quickly. They will try to overload Jirachi with multiple dragon type attacks and try to beat Jirachi into submission or otherwise attempt to trap Jirachi with Magnezone or something before going ahead with their dragon spam. For those reasons, I have made this Jirachi just about as good of a dragon type check as a Pokémon can be. The given defensive investment ensures that I will never be 2HKO’ed by Choice Band Haxorus’s Outrage or Choice Specs Latios’s Draco Meteor. Furthermore, I will never be 2HKO’ed by Latios’s Hidden Power (Fire) or OHKO’ed by any Earthquake from Choice Band Dragonite or Choice Band Salamence (CB Haxorus can still OHKO with Choice Band Earthquake though). In return, Jirachi can strike back hard with Iron Head for a healthy amount of damage or U-turn to Mamoswine to threaten the dragons out. Basically, Jirachi should be able to take any attack a dragon type sends her way and live to tell the tale. If it’s a super effective coverage move, it will leave a mark but Jirachi should be able survive and then I can react appropriately.
U-Turn was added to this set to make sure I can switch out of Magnezones who could otherwise eleiminate Jirachi while Stealth Rocks forces Tornadus-T and Dragonite to come in at 75% health which makes them a lot more manageable. Wish is Jirachi’s only form of healing and is also my greatest weapon against stall teams thanks to its ability to heal off any damage entry hazards may have racked up. The EV spread, as I previously mentioned, makes sure that Jirachi can take any Dragon Type attack and live to tell the tale while the 32 speed EV’s make sure I always outrun Magnezone and Tyranitar. One final thing that I’d like to say is that I know that this Jirachi isn’t packing Iron Head and Body Slam and if I was allowed 6 moves to a Pokémon, I’d definitely throw them on Jirachi. Unfortunately I need Jirachi to handle some very specific threats and it needs this moveset to accomplish its goals.
The Game Plan
This is a basic explanation of how I play this team and how I work around some playstyles that can be threatening. Obviously you have to make in game adjustments as necessary but generally the below strategies hold true. if you don't feel like reading all this, the basic strategy is to set up rocks, parashuffle with Dragonite, and then finish up with a sweep from one of my other pokemon.
Standard
I like to start every match by laying hazards with Jirachi, but based on my opponent’s team I may end up starting with Celebi or Mamoswine instead. Either way my early game plan is to set up hazards and then pivot to Dragonite so he can start parashuffling. I let Dragonite do his thing, switching in Mamoswine, Celebi, or Jirachi when Dragonite gets threatened, but once the threat is neutralized or switches out, I generally go back to Dragonite. I work Dragonite until he runs out of PP in Dragon Tail or Roost at which point the majority of my opponent’s team is paralyzed and weakened from Thunder Wave and Dragon Tail respectively. At these points, one of my Pokémon can generally come in and clean sweep the remainder of my opponents team so I either sack Dragonite or normal switch to the appropriate Pokémon and go in for the kill. If one of my Pokémon can’t pull off a clean sweep when Dragonite is out of PP in one move, i generally try and create an opening for Alakazam or Haxorus to come in and start shooting off powerful attacks in the hopes of bringing one of my opponents Pokémon down thereby facilitating a sweep. Alternatively I can go down the more patient route and try to wear my opponents down some more before attempting a sweep. The second strategy seems to work better against more offensive teams because Life Orb recoil wears those teams down fast.
Dragon Spam Teams
Since Haxorus has a touph time setting up on these sort of teams, I generally start out the battle by using Haxorus as a suicide lead. Haxorus can set up on stuff Deoxys-D who try to set up screens or hazards for these types of teams or Haxorus can set up on Magnezones when my opponent is overeager and tries to KO Jirachi right off the bat. If my opponent leads with a dragon I end up just using Outrage hoping for a KO if my opponent overpredicts or if I outspeed my opponents dragon (mostly Dragonite, Hydreigon, and apposing Haxorus). In either case, I just keep on attacking with haxorus till it dies and then switch to Jirachi or Dragonite, whichever is more appropriate at the time. I set up rocks with Jirachi if I switched Jirachi in, I start working on ways to get Dragonite in safely and generally I do by baiting an Earthquake. Once Dragonite is in, I start him up on the usual track paralyzing my opponents and spamming Dragon Tail (which does a ton of damage against these types of teams, BTW) and basically just play normally. After my opponents faster dragons are paralyzed and my opponents priority users are weakened, I send in Mamoswine for a clean up sweep. However, if Mamoswine is KO’ed before/ during its sweep, I can generally go to Alakazam to tidy up just as long as I play around/eliminate any priority users my opponent may have. By the Way, Celebi is little more than death fodder against most Dragon Spam teams so be sure to use it as such.
Stall Teams
Stall teams are tricky because this team relies a lot on stacking up residual damage before going for the sweep, but most stallmons can recover that damage fairly easily. To counter this, I spend the whole game trying to set up Haxorus/Alakazam up for a sweep. Basically I play the same as normal but I do change up how I play Dragonite. Basically, instead of paralyzing every Pokémon that comes in to face me, I try to only paralyze the Pokémon preventing a Haxorus or Alakazam sweep. The logic behind this is that players try to save as many of their Pokémon from paralysis as possible and to that end they often switch in already paralyzed Pokémon into Dragonite. This allows me to rack up damage on those Pokémon using dragon tail weakening them to the point where Alakazam or Haxorus can sweep through them. You have to make sure you don’t let your opponent find out what you are trying to do because if they catch on, this strategy falls apart. To that end make sure you “pretend” to try to paralyze the opponents entire team; If you predict your opponent will switch from the non- paralyzed Tentacruel to the Paralyzed Jirachi, use Thunder Wave to feign trying to paralyze Tentacruel. After you feel you’ve racked up enough damage on Haxorus/ Alakazam’s counters, feel free to switch those guys in and sweep to victory. One more thing about facing stall. If entry hazard damage is racking up, you can always spam Jirachi’s wish to keep the team relatively healthy. Just a helpful tip.
Standard
I like to start every match by laying hazards with Jirachi, but based on my opponent’s team I may end up starting with Celebi or Mamoswine instead. Either way my early game plan is to set up hazards and then pivot to Dragonite so he can start parashuffling. I let Dragonite do his thing, switching in Mamoswine, Celebi, or Jirachi when Dragonite gets threatened, but once the threat is neutralized or switches out, I generally go back to Dragonite. I work Dragonite until he runs out of PP in Dragon Tail or Roost at which point the majority of my opponent’s team is paralyzed and weakened from Thunder Wave and Dragon Tail respectively. At these points, one of my Pokémon can generally come in and clean sweep the remainder of my opponents team so I either sack Dragonite or normal switch to the appropriate Pokémon and go in for the kill. If one of my Pokémon can’t pull off a clean sweep when Dragonite is out of PP in one move, i generally try and create an opening for Alakazam or Haxorus to come in and start shooting off powerful attacks in the hopes of bringing one of my opponents Pokémon down thereby facilitating a sweep. Alternatively I can go down the more patient route and try to wear my opponents down some more before attempting a sweep. The second strategy seems to work better against more offensive teams because Life Orb recoil wears those teams down fast.
Dragon Spam Teams
Since Haxorus has a touph time setting up on these sort of teams, I generally start out the battle by using Haxorus as a suicide lead. Haxorus can set up on stuff Deoxys-D who try to set up screens or hazards for these types of teams or Haxorus can set up on Magnezones when my opponent is overeager and tries to KO Jirachi right off the bat. If my opponent leads with a dragon I end up just using Outrage hoping for a KO if my opponent overpredicts or if I outspeed my opponents dragon (mostly Dragonite, Hydreigon, and apposing Haxorus). In either case, I just keep on attacking with haxorus till it dies and then switch to Jirachi or Dragonite, whichever is more appropriate at the time. I set up rocks with Jirachi if I switched Jirachi in, I start working on ways to get Dragonite in safely and generally I do by baiting an Earthquake. Once Dragonite is in, I start him up on the usual track paralyzing my opponents and spamming Dragon Tail (which does a ton of damage against these types of teams, BTW) and basically just play normally. After my opponents faster dragons are paralyzed and my opponents priority users are weakened, I send in Mamoswine for a clean up sweep. However, if Mamoswine is KO’ed before/ during its sweep, I can generally go to Alakazam to tidy up just as long as I play around/eliminate any priority users my opponent may have. By the Way, Celebi is little more than death fodder against most Dragon Spam teams so be sure to use it as such.
Stall Teams
Stall teams are tricky because this team relies a lot on stacking up residual damage before going for the sweep, but most stallmons can recover that damage fairly easily. To counter this, I spend the whole game trying to set up Haxorus/Alakazam up for a sweep. Basically I play the same as normal but I do change up how I play Dragonite. Basically, instead of paralyzing every Pokémon that comes in to face me, I try to only paralyze the Pokémon preventing a Haxorus or Alakazam sweep. The logic behind this is that players try to save as many of their Pokémon from paralysis as possible and to that end they often switch in already paralyzed Pokémon into Dragonite. This allows me to rack up damage on those Pokémon using dragon tail weakening them to the point where Alakazam or Haxorus can sweep through them. You have to make sure you don’t let your opponent find out what you are trying to do because if they catch on, this strategy falls apart. To that end make sure you “pretend” to try to paralyze the opponents entire team; If you predict your opponent will switch from the non- paralyzed Tentacruel to the Paralyzed Jirachi, use Thunder Wave to feign trying to paralyze Tentacruel. After you feel you’ve racked up enough damage on Haxorus/ Alakazam’s counters, feel free to switch those guys in and sweep to victory. One more thing about facing stall. If entry hazard damage is racking up, you can always spam Jirachi’s wish to keep the team relatively healthy. Just a helpful tip.
Conclusion
This team works wonders when played right. Parashuffler Dragonite is an all around beast and just does such a great job of setting up endgame sweeps by one of my more offensive mons. If you don’t feel like using another weather team, feel free to borrow this one. Thanks for reading and rates are appreciated. Valar Dohaeris.
